Coroners and Justice Bill — Remove the power of the Lord Chancellor to suspend a coroner's investigation and inquest and replace it with an "inquiry" — rejected — 9 Nov 2009 at 18:33
Tim Yeo MP, South Suffolk voted in the minority (Aye).
The majority No voters rejected an amendment[1] to the Coroners and Justice Bill. The amendment would have removed a provision in the bill[2] enabling the Lord Chancellor to suspend a coroner's investigation and inquest and replace it with an "inquiry". The Lord Chancellor is a government minister - currently Jack Straw. However, the amendment was defeated.
Due to a procedural farce Minister Jack Straw, the Lord Chancellor proposed amendment (a) in lieu of Lords amendments 1, 2 and 216[3] but then went on to vote against it. The standing orders of the House of Commons and the procedural motion passed to determine the timetable for handling the bill meant that the opposition were unable to table the motion.
It was later claimed that this slim majority of only eight votes was in-fact slimmer than it appeared due to a number of Labour MPs voted the wrong way by mistake[4]. Denis MacShane has said he felt he voted the wrong way on this vote[5].
The main provisions of the Coroners and Justice Bill were to[6]:
- Allow secret inquests although the Lord Chief Justice can veto requests for private inquests and decide who the judge is
- Prevent criminals from profiting from publications about their crimes
- Allow courts to grant anonymity to vulnerable or intimidated witnesses as long as this still ensured a fair trial
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- [1] Jack Straw MP, 9 November 2009, House of Commons
- [2] Bill as brought from the Commons 26.03.09, See printed page 115 (PDF page 126). (Direct link to Schedules (HTML))
- [3] Amendment sheet
- [4] Andrew Dismore, 12 November 2009, House of Commons
- [5] Denis MacShane, 12 November 2009, House of Commons
- [6] Wikipedia entry, Retrieved on 2010-02-07
Party Summary
Votes by party, red entries are votes against the majority for that party.
What is Tell? '+1 tell' means that in addition one member of that party was a teller for that division lobby.
What are Boths? An MP can vote both aye and no in the same division. The boths page explains this.
What is Turnout? This is measured against the total membership of the party at the time of the vote.
| Party | Majority (No) | Minority (Aye) | Both | Turnout |
| Con | 0 | 168 (+2 tell) | 0 | 88.1% |
| DUP | 0 | 1 | 0 | 11.1% |
| Ind | 1 | 5 | 0 | 100.0% |
| Ind Lab | 0 | 1 | 0 | 100.0% |
| Lab | 273 (+2 tell) | 30 | 0 | 87.4% |
| LDem | 0 | 55 | 0 | 87.3% |
| PC | 0 | 3 | 0 | 100.0% |
| SDLP | 0 | 1 | 0 | 33.3% |
| SNP | 0 | 3 | 0 | 42.9% |
| Total: | 274 | 267 | 0 | 86.0% |
Rebel Voters - sorted by party
MPs for which their vote in this division differed from the majority vote of their party. You can see all votes in this division, or every eligible MP who could have voted in this division
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