The UK justice secretary, Jack Straw, has abandoned his plans to hold parts of inquests in secret and without a jury on the grounds of national security.
The controversial proposal could have been used in cases such as the friendly-fire deaths of British servicemen in Iraq and the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes. It was due to go before the House of Lords on Monday.
But in a Commons statement today Straw admitted defeat, saying that the idea of secret inquests in front of a specially selected coroner still did not command the necessary cross-party support to get it on to the statute book.
The climbdown is a fresh humiliation over the issue for the justice secretary because he was initially forced to drop it from last year's counter-terrorism bill amid the parliamentary battle over increasing to 42 days the limit on detention without charge of terror suspects.
The inquest proposal was greeted by a fresh wave of criticism when he reintroduced it in the House of Commons in January. He was forced to make concessions in March with the final decision on whether an inquest went ahead in secret handed over from the justice secretary to a high court judge.
Guardian.co.uk - De Menezes shooting investigation 'like an episode of Fawlty Towers'; Mail Online