Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Bill

I am not able to give legal advice to the hon. Gentleman off the top of my head, but I shall risk advising him that I think that he is probably wrong in respect of the health trust, but not on the police. However, I will write to him if my current advice is wrong. [Interruption.] My hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Rob Marris) shouts from a sedentary position that that was spoken like a true lawyer. While it is true that what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, it is by definition also true that a goose is different from a gander, and in this case public bodies and Government Departments are different from private organisations. Private organisations have different responsibilities, but they are not subject to the strong mechanisms for accountability and scrutiny to which public bodies are already accountable. All deaths in custody are subject in public bodies to an independent investigation. The prisons and police and others have separate ombudsmen, who report publicly, and very often to Parliament. There is an Independent Police Complaints Commission, for example. All deaths in custody are also subject to coroners’ inquest in public, with a jury. Individual criminal proceedings and disciplinary processes are available in appropriate cases, and that is only in respect of the police and the criminal justice system, which the hon. Gentleman mentioned. Therefore there are a huge number of mechanisms that already scrutinise public bodies and Government Departments, but that do not do so in the case of private organisations. That is recognised in the Bill by not applying exactly the same rules and regulations to public and private sectors. I maintain however that the removal of Crown immunity is an historic, unprecedented step. The hon. Gentleman might point out that in his view it does not go entirely far enough, but it is a step that we have been waiting not only decades, but in many cases centuries, to achieve, and I would not want anyone to diminish the importance of the fact that we have removed that immunity. I now wish to make a little progress.