Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Bill

I echo the Minister’s sentiments in wishing the Bill a good passage. Although I said on Second Reading that there might be another way to approach the problem, I always accepted that the Government’s approach had validity. Once I had, not altogether to my surprise, failed in Committee to persuade the Government that the Bill could undergo major restructuring to rely on the Health and Safety at Work, etc. Act 1974, I was content to try to help the Government to improve the Bill. Indeed, Conservative Members are so content. The Minister was right to say that the Government have listened during the passage of the Bill, which undoubtedly leaves this House in an improved state as regards some important and key aspects. I appreciate that some hon. Members feel very strongly about individual liability, but I am completely of one mind with the Minister in believing that it would be an improper use of the Bill to extend it in that way. Personal liability will continue in the form of the existing manslaughter offence, and that is the correct way in which to approach the matter. I am pleased to learn from the Minister that further consideration will be given to whether other organisations should be capable of committing the offence. I appreciate that this is a difficult area, as has been evident as we have considered the detail of the Bill, but the advantages of doing this outweigh the disadvantages. Unless we bring partnerships and unincorporated associations within the ambit of the Bill, the public will have great difficulty in understanding how very large organisations with many hundreds of employees can somehow slip outside its operation. We have discussed in Committee and subsequently the various exceptions in the Bill. That has been an extremely pleasant debate, on the whole, and I am sorry that in the lateness of this evening the note seemed to change somewhat when we came to discuss custody. I began to wonder whether the Home Secretary would have done well to heed my original suggestion to amend the 1974 Act, as he might have found that less difficult to swallow. The Government clearly find it very hard to handle the suggestion that there should potentially be corporate manslaughter liability on those who have custody of others within the criminal justice system and elsewhere, and they have excluded that from the Bill. I am sorry about that, because I am convinced that the Minister will have to revisit the matter when the Bill comes back from another place. That was the one moment in the entire passage of the Bill when I felt that the Government were unable to make any coherent case. Even more worryingly, they seemed suddenly to resort to invective to try to suppress utterly rational argument led from their own Back Benches. I hope that in the quiet interval that occurs before the Bill arrives in the other place, they may be able to reconsider the matter and come at it from a new angle, because it will not go away. If we are prepared to impose this serious sanction on corporations in the private sector and, in some settings, on Government Departments, it is beyond my comprehension that the Prison Service, the police and other organisations in custodial settings should be exempt. I am sorry that the Home Secretary is no longer in his place. He seemed to get very excited about the extent to which moving into custody would inevitably mean moving into military activities, but the two are plainly very different. Although one could argue for including training within the scope of the Bill, those who participate in military activities are facing the risk of death in active service settings where it would be absurd to start to look at the niceties of decisions in the context of corporate manslaughter. I hope that the Minister will pass that message to the Home Secretary, because it appeared to work him up greatly. A gentle word in his ear might reassure him on the point and persuade him to revisit the argument about custody, which he currently regrettably ignores. It is unfortunate that, although we plainly had enough time in Committee, we failed to provide enough time on Report. We have raised such failings often. We needed two days on Report for such a Bill, and that must have become apparent when we realised how many amendments had been tabled. Nobody has filibustered in the debate this evening. Policing and law enforcement remain another difficult matter—to my mind, more difficult than custody—but they cannot be brushed under the carpet. The actions of the police in some settings may require us to amend the Bill in another place, but we will listen carefully to the Government’s arguments about that. I do not have a closed mind on the issue and I emphasise in passing that I would not have pressed the amendment that I tabled to stimulate debate, because I was aware of its shortcomings, although it was well intentioned by the organisation that proposed it. The Government have substantially tightened the law on emergencies, for which I am grateful. We had tabled amendments, which we had no opportunity of considering. Although I am sorry that we were deprived of the Minister’s presentation of the amendments that he tabled, I believe that they satisfy us. I shall consider them carefully. What should happen in respect of private emergency services is more problematic. I continue to be anxious that we are being unfair to such organisations, which have to make exactly the same decisions in an emergency as statutory bodies. We have not been able to revisit child protection on Report and I appreciate the Government’s difficulty with the matter. The arguments that the Minister presented in Committee were persuasive. However, that brings us back to the central issue that, when an organisation or Department takes over someone’s care, which happens in a custodial setting or once a care order has been made, I find it especially difficult to justify exempting social services departments from the Bill. That is different from circumstances in which decisions have to be made about whether to intervene to take a child into care. They are of a slightly different nature and often extremely difficult. We are pleased that the Government have moved on remedial orders, and we shall have an opportunity of considering that more carefully. Earlier, the Minister discussed some of them. Again, I am sorry that we have not had an opportunity for a fuller debate on them. I do not want to take up more of the House’s time. The Bill is capable of doing good. That is why we have been happy to support it and are happy to support Third Reading. Improvement is needed and I ask the Government to continue in a spirit of dialogue and not to follow the Home Secretary’s example this evening of suddenly behaving like a scalded cat when we are happy to continue the consensual nature of our debate. The subject is challenging but the key is that the public must be reassured that the measure will be fair and evenly applied. If it fulfils that test, it will make a powerful contribution to increasing health and safety generally. On that basis, it is worthy of support.