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Done! I wish you every success in your efforts.
PD
PD
R
rogerslimprs
Guest
Why didn't we think of that before? Just use the magic words, 'Jihad, Jihad, Jihad' and the walls of parliament will come tumbling down and ol' Gordoon will be running down the street in his underpants!!
Now that is a word that gets things done around here.
Read the Government's response:
The Government is very proud of all our service personnel who have served and are serving on operations overseas. They risk their lives to protect the interests of the United Kingdom. With great determination and professionalism they help to build strong, stable, democratic nations. We owe them an immense debt of gratitude. We will always honour those who have given their lives in this work, and we are strongly committed to providing our best possible support to their families.
Ministers have no powers to intervene in any inquest as the petition asks, but there are ways the Government is able to help, and when the petition was posted in March 2007 we were already acting to help address the backlog of service personnel inquests in the Oxfordshire coroner's district which had built up because of the decision to return all service fatalities at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire. On 31 March 2007 RAF Brize Norton closed for repatriations from service personnel deaths overseas, and RAF Lyneham in Wiltshire took its place as the point of repatriation.
Coroners are a local service, appointed and paid for by individual local authorities. Since May 2006, however, central Government has exceptionally been providing additional resources firstly to the Oxfordshire coroner and more recently to the Wiltshire and Swindon coroner because of the singular burdens in these jurisdictions. These have helped the Oxfordshire coroner to deal with the backlog of service personnel inquests and have prevented a backlog of inquests building up in the Wiltshire and Swindon coroner's jurisdiction.
The Government is committed to providing the best possible support for the bereaved families of service personnel. This includes funding for two family members to attend the inquest and any pre-inquest hearings. Visiting officers ensure that families know what to expect from the inquest, and a special Ministry of Defence team ensures that coroners receive the information and reports they need for the inquest.
One point that should be made is that there would be no purpose in a coroner resuming a service personnel inquest before he or she had received the reports of all the inquiries into the death. Some of these inquiries are very complex, and in the nature of things they cannot be artificially hastened. We owe it to the bereaved families to ensure that all the evidence is considered as part of the inquest process.
The Oxfordshire coroner has been able to appoint three additional assistant deputy coroners, three coroner's officers and additional administrative support. The Wiltshire and Swindon coroner has been able to appoint an additional assistant deputy coroner, and additional coroner's officer and administrative support. He has also secured suitable accommodation to hold service personnel inquests. Where possible single deaths have been transferred to other coroners nearer to the next of kin.
There has been good progress in the past year. We reported in a statement to Parliament on 29 March 2007 that there were 75 open service personnel inquests in Oxfordshire. Today in April 2008 there are 25, two of which are listed for hearing in the third week of the month. In Wiltshire 10 inquests are currently being heard and there are another 23 open inquests. Overall 174 inquests have been completed into service personnel deaths on operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The Government is very proud of all our service personnel who have served and are serving on operations overseas. They risk their lives to protect the interests of the United Kingdom. With great determination and professionalism they help to build strong, stable, democratic nations. We owe them an immense debt of gratitude. We will always honour those who have given their lives in this work, and we are strongly committed to providing our best possible support to their families.
Ministers have no powers to intervene in any inquest as the petition asks, but there are ways the Government is able to help, and when the petition was posted in March 2007 we were already acting to help address the backlog of service personnel inquests in the Oxfordshire coroner's district which had built up because of the decision to return all service fatalities at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire. On 31 March 2007 RAF Brize Norton closed for repatriations from service personnel deaths overseas, and RAF Lyneham in Wiltshire took its place as the point of repatriation.
Coroners are a local service, appointed and paid for by individual local authorities. Since May 2006, however, central Government has exceptionally been providing additional resources firstly to the Oxfordshire coroner and more recently to the Wiltshire and Swindon coroner because of the singular burdens in these jurisdictions. These have helped the Oxfordshire coroner to deal with the backlog of service personnel inquests and have prevented a backlog of inquests building up in the Wiltshire and Swindon coroner's jurisdiction.
The Government is committed to providing the best possible support for the bereaved families of service personnel. This includes funding for two family members to attend the inquest and any pre-inquest hearings. Visiting officers ensure that families know what to expect from the inquest, and a special Ministry of Defence team ensures that coroners receive the information and reports they need for the inquest.
One point that should be made is that there would be no purpose in a coroner resuming a service personnel inquest before he or she had received the reports of all the inquiries into the death. Some of these inquiries are very complex, and in the nature of things they cannot be artificially hastened. We owe it to the bereaved families to ensure that all the evidence is considered as part of the inquest process.
The Oxfordshire coroner has been able to appoint three additional assistant deputy coroners, three coroner's officers and additional administrative support. The Wiltshire and Swindon coroner has been able to appoint an additional assistant deputy coroner, and additional coroner's officer and administrative support. He has also secured suitable accommodation to hold service personnel inquests. Where possible single deaths have been transferred to other coroners nearer to the next of kin.
There has been good progress in the past year. We reported in a statement to Parliament on 29 March 2007 that there were 75 open service personnel inquests in Oxfordshire. Today in April 2008 there are 25, two of which are listed for hearing in the third week of the month. In Wiltshire 10 inquests are currently being heard and there are another 23 open inquests. Overall 174 inquests have been completed into service personnel deaths on operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.
If you had registered your name for the petition (before the closing date) you would have had the link to the governments response sent to you (i.e. what I posted).
Crack on..................
DT_Xtremez_09: