Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps the Government has taken as a result of the recommendation made in the Hutton review of forensic pathology in England and Wales, submitted to the Minister of State for Crime and Prevention in March 2015, that second post-mortems are only authorised following a formal application to a coroner or judge and become a desktop review of the first report.

The Home Office has raised the process of second post mortem authorisation with the Chief Coroner who has produced proposed changes in line with Hutton recommendation that are currently out for consultation with key stakeholders.