Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Bill

Liberal Democrat Members support the thrust of the thinking behind new clause 3. The hon. Member for Hornchurch (James Brokenshire) made the point very well in Committee. I am sure that the Minister sympathises, and he should consider its terms and at least table amendments in the other place. We also support amendment No. 1, in the name of the hon. Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore), which seeks to achieve similar things to our amendment No. 22 and new clause 5. If I have a preference, it is for amendment No. 1. The Government seem to be in two minds. When they issued the Home Office consultation document in 2000, they were happy that unincorporated associations and partnerships should fall within the ambit of the organisations that would be liable to the new offence. It is regrettable that they did a U-turn on that. In Committee, the Minister seemed open to the idea and did not close the door on it. If he has sympathy with the argument, he should take this opportunity to act, because such Bills do not come along every week. I am sure that he understands that, and I wish him well in his arguments in Whitehall. The arguments that the Minister and his colleagues have used so far against including unincorporated associations and partnerships have been weak, to say the least. For example, the hon. Gentleman said in Committee that, according to the Health and Safety Executive, not many cases had arisen. Such an argument is frankly poor. It will not do any favours to a relative of someone who was killed as a result of gross negligence manslaughter by a partnership or unincorporated association. Relatives would not be impressed to hear that Parliament considered the matter but, because there were not many such cases, did not bother to legislate. There is a perverse problem in that not legislating could create an incentive for companies to structure themselves as unincorporated associations and partnerships if they were trying to get out of health and safety legislation. Let us be clear: the rogue bosses, to use the Minister’s phrase when he spoke about correspondence from the CBI, will try to escape such control. They will structure themselves in order to do that. If the Minister is not careful, he will create a loophole, which the sort of companies that he mentioned will try to exploit. The hon. Member for Hornchurch covered many other issues that I wanted to tackle, so I shall not repeat his comments. I shall simply consider a matter that I raised in Committee and that amendment No. 22 reflects. There could be small unincorporated bodies consisting, for example, of two individuals. Individual A could commit an offence of which individual B had no knowledge but was somehow found guilty through being part of the unincorporated body. I believed that there was a danger of unfairness. On reflection, I was unwise to be so concerned because, in such a case, it is more likely that individual A would be charged with individual gross negligence manslaughter. The Director of Public Prosecutions would be unlikely to believe that it was in the public interest to prosecute individual B. The unfairness about which I was worried in Committee and led to my drafting amendment No. 22 is not such a problem. It is far more important to include unincorporated associations and partnerships in the Bill and I hope that the Minister accepts that.