Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Bill

As the hon. Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) will be aware, the official Opposition and others have signed his amendment No. 3. In addition, we have tabled amendment No. 16. There is a minor difference from the wording of the hon. Gentleman’s amendment, but it clearly states that the Bill should encompass"““the management of a prison, young offenders’ institution, police custody unit, immigration accommodation centre or any other place of lawful detention.””" The hon. Gentleman has clearly explained the arguments in favour of the proposed move, and I do not wish simply to repeat what he has said, but there is one angle that can be looked at in greater detail: the concept of custody. As the word implies, it means entrusting somebody or something to somebody else. Although we often use it in the context of punishment in prison, there are many instances in which it does not imply punishment at all. A person detained on remand may be, and often is, detained for their own protection; that is one of the grounds on which remand can be ordered before trial. In some cases, custody of an individual is required not only for punishment but, for some young people, because of the need to rehabilitate them. That is one of the primary reasons why it is ordered. If something goes wrong and a person dies while they are in custody, that is a serious matter. Those who have custody of that person might not always be at fault; people do commit suicide, however vigilant individuals are. People might suffer accidents in custody that are not anybody else’s fault. However, as the hon. Gentleman has rightly said, we have ample evidence that many deaths in custody are entirely preventable and are caused in part by neglect or, as in one of the cases he highlighted, because decisions are taken that have an element of deliberation in the attitude of prison officers to those in their charge, which is reprehensible in the extreme. I am thinking in particular of someone who is killed by a fellow inmate in their cell.