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The "secret inquests" issue in the turns out to be fantastically intricate.

It is how to deal with inquests where intercept evidence from the police or security services is central to determining the cause of death.

A rather weary Jack Straw, the Lord Chancellor, says he's been "up hill and down dale" in trying to find a mechanism which complied with the European Declaration on Human Rights, while still preserving the essential security of intelligence gathering techniques.

He says his proposals have been "parodied" as secret inquests. Bob Marshall-Andrews, on his own benches, and Dominic Grieve, from the Conservative front bench, both remain very worried. They want to kick the bill back to the Lords to give the government time to think of a new mechanism.

Security risks

Watching Jack Straw in action in this kind of debate is always impressive; he's a master of his brief, courteous and cool. He argues that there does need to be a mechanism which avoids security risks in cases where wiretap evidence or whatever is central to determining how someone died.

He insisted, repeatedly, that cases would very occasionally arise and that the government couldn't simply wing it. But tonight he had a lot of critics. Bob Marshall-Andrews called it a "grotesquely overstated problem".

Andrew Dismore described a case in his constituency where a man was shot dead by police during the course of a drugs operation. Surveillance evidence had been involved, but no inquest had been held to explain what happened. Mark Durkan, leader of the SDLP, weighed in with the experience of the Troubles.

An amendment from Mr Dismore which would have, in effect thrown the issue back to the House of Lords, was defeated by just eight votes.

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