Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Bill

The right hon. and learned Gentleman is right. There is a gap because, as the hon. Member for Beaconsfield said, acts of omission should be caught under the 1974 Act. However, there is something between the offence of individual gross negligence manslaughter, which will remain and can be acted on, and an offence under the 1974 Act. I am grateful to the right hon. and learned Gentleman for strengthening my argument. The hon. Member for Beaconsfield also made my case when he talked about an aggravated offence under the 1974 Act. There is a gap whereby directors who have behaved very badly and should be brought to book are escaping because the threshold is too high or the prosecution of the offence is not serious enough to satisfy the understandable desire for justice on the part of relatives, victims and the general public at large.