Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what recent discussions he has had and with whom on the standard of proof required for a conclusion of suicide in a coroner's court; and if he will make a statement.

Coroners are independent judicial office holders and, as such, it would be inappropriate to speculate on issues directly relating to the conclusions they record. The Ministry of Justice collects annual data, from each coroner area, on the number of inquest conclusions recorded. The most recent data are available at: www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/706047/coroners-statistics-2017-csvs.zip.

Since the High Court judgment in R (Maughan) v Her Majesty’s Senior Coroner for Oxfordshire of July last year, coroners have applied the civil standard of proof in suicide conclusions, but this will shortly be considered by the Court of Appeal. I have not had any recent discussions on the standard of proof issue as it would be inappropriate for me to do so while the matter is before the courts.