A PLAIN English translation of complex new Bills is just one of several innovations being pioneered by ministers as they try to give the public a bigger role in Parliament and stem voter apathy.

In the autumn, the Bill to reform the coroners’ system will be reviewed by a panel of 15 members of the public who have had recent direct experience of the using the court.

Ms Harman, who is in charge of the Bill, said that, unlike health and education, not all MPs come into contact with bereaved families who have used the service, since only 29,000 cases end up there each year. “It is extraordinarily important we hear what they have to say,” Ms Harman said. “It means we are not just relying on the views of the professionals and pressure groups, important though those views are.

“They might say ‘this is rubbish’. That is a risk, but we need to hear that before we go any further.”

The Public Parliamentary Panel will sit in session for two days in Westminster, where MPs, peers and the media will be invited to listen to their discussions as they go through the draft Bill before it goes to the Commons for debate.

The Bill, designed to prevent another Harold Shipman case, means that families will have a right to ask a coroner for a second opinion if they disagree with the doctor’s conclusion on the death certificate.

Other more controversial leglislation, which opens up the proceedings of family courts, will also be subject to a new experiment. A “practice direction” will let the family courts go ahead and open their doors to the press and public before the Bill is passed. The experience of the courts will then feed into the Bill.

In a second move, the Family Court Bill will be subject to “post-legislative scrutiny” where MPs and ministers return to it after a period of operation to see how the legislation has worked. “At the moment we have Select Committees, which scrutinise the operation of Bills, and sunset clauses allow parts of the Bill to automatically expire,” Ms Harman said.

“Neither of those let ministers and MPs assess how the Bill is functioning with a view to amending it. Post-legislative scrutiny will do that.”

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