Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Bill

My Lords, I join all those who have expressed their gratitude to the Minister for the clarity with which she introduced this subject. I am sure that at the same time I express the feelings of the majority of, if not all, noble Lords, in admiring the stamina and courtesy with which she has coped with a quite horrendous legislative load during the year. We wish her a peaceful and restful Christmas break. I will not deal with the issue of the Armed Forces raised today, except to say that I was interested to see the comments of the coroner about the death of Sergeant Roberts and the corporate responsibility of the Ministry of Defence. In earlier discussions on that issue, serious concerns were expressed about the lack of resources available to the Army to buy sufficient flak jackets with which to equip everyone required to go on operations. Therefore, when we start looking at where the buck stops on that issue, I suspect it will go right to the top. I shall follow on from the two marvellous speeches by my noble friends Lady D’Souza and Lady Stern, which showed their usual clarity and wisdom, and concentrate on an issue mentioned by many noble Lords: deaths in custody, which at present is excluded from the Bill. It is a particular interest of mine. In 1999 I was invited by the then Minister of Prisons, now the noble Baroness, Lady Quin, to conduct a study into the prevention of suicide in prisons and to make recommendations. I concluded that report by saying: "““Central to my recommendations is the need for a ringing declaration from the Home Secretary, through the Director-General, to everyone in the Prison Service, that suicide and self-harm can and will be reduced, and that accountability for delivering that reduction begins at the top and goes right down to the bottom””." We found that the current strategy had been only partly implemented. There were serious deficiencies in the application of the policy; for example, ignoring the need for case reviews, the absence of quality checks on vital documentation and inadequate training of staff. Above all, though, there was an absence of total ownership of the strategy by some senior managers. It is abundantly clear that any systems devised will be useless unless accompanied by the total ownership of, and commitment to, their implementation throughout the Prison Service. The Minister commented on what she described as infection with the disease of sloppiness. It was the sloppiness I found in management that concerned me most; for example, we found that staff had done nothing to take away the chewing gum and sticking plaster that had been used to disable audible alarms in staff offices so they could not be heard from cells. Also, nothing had been done to eliminate the practice by some nurses of writing up beforehand the 15-minute observations they were meant to carry out. At 2.15 it was discovered that every observation for the next two hours had been completed as if it had already happened. It is that sort of sloppiness in management that time and again contributes to some of the unnecessary deaths in custody. I am therefore delighted that at Third Reading in the other place, Mr John Denham and Mr Andrew Dismore, who have been quoted already, referred to this issue and to the illogicality of protesting that the current system of inquiries is sufficient to satisfy public concern about unnecessary deaths. I endorse entirely the cases mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Stern: those of Edwards and Scholes. I shall add two more. The first is the case of Sarah Campbell, who committed suicide in Styal prison, a matter mentioned in this House many times. The other is the case, with which I am currently involved, of Paul Day, who committed suicide in Frankland in 2002. When the inquest met to consider the Day case, the jury made some very stinging remarks that bear repeating. The jurors believed: "““The decision to move Paul to HMP Frankland was inappropriate. Information provided to HMP Frankland””—" by the place from which he had been sent— "““was inadequate. The failures in the system are … lack of communication between prisons … lack of procedures in place for transfers … management should be more involved in transfer procedures””." The jury found that: "““The systems in place to effectively manage and care for Paul were inadequate. The dirty protest protocol was not adhered to. There was a lack of staff on night shifts””." The suicide system failed as, "““checks by management were not done on entries, and the complaints procedure was too slow””." I can think of nothing more descriptive of sloppy management. The situation deserves more than an internal inquiry that never sees the light of day and never satisfies the family, who are the victims on this occasion. It seems perverse, at best, to exclude that sort of incident, which is perfectly allowed for under this Bill, the majority of which I agree with. Crown immunity has now been removed. Senior management is included in what is to happen. Here is a priceless opportunity for the Government to show their commitment to everything they have so often preached, such as rebalancing the criminal justice system in favour of the victims. The victims here—the families—do not have the system balanced in their favour in any way. Incidentally, I note with concern that the coroners Bill, which also has relevance to this issue, is not among the 29 Bills due to come to us during this Session. The inquest is something families look forward to, believing it will do more than they currently received from the Prison Service. The present system does not allow that to happen. I am also interested to see that the role of the Chief Inspector of Prisons has been mentioned here. As chief inspector I was not involved in the investigation of these events, nor is my successor. The person who does that is the ombudsman, who is responsible for the investigation of the investigation of grievances, not of the treatment and conditions of prisoners. That may be the wrong person. With regard to the remarks of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lyell, about resources, the duty of care cannot be exercised just like that. It requires the resources to enable that duty to be universal and cover all needs. I am sure the Minister is as disturbed as I am to learn that next year there will have to be what are described as the biggest cuts yet in the Prison Service in order to pay for the Home Secretary’s promise of 8,000 new prison places. When the voluntary sector co-ordinator was addressing the National Offender Management Service advisory group this week, and was asked specifically whether that meant cuts in the work that NOMS had identified as the pathways to re-offending, he replied that that is not the way it should be but that is what will happen. I mention that because on top of all our concerns about the exclusion of custody from corporate manslaughter, I am concerned at what may happen if all the add-ons and activities in prison that are designed to prevent suicides and other such events are harmed by the reduction in resources. If that happens, the responsibility for that reduction, and therefore the reduction in the duty of care, should also fall to those who are responsible for providing the resources. In our debate on 9 June, the Minister closed with the following sentence: "““There is probably no area of government where human rights are more crucial to citizens than when they are being detained in the care of the state, whether in prison, a police cell, detained under the Mental Health Act or elsewhere in an institution””.—[Official Report, 9/6/05; col. 1057.]" I am sure everyone agrees with every word she said, and I hope that when the Bill comes to Committee, as I hope it will, the Minister will be able to demonstrate that by the reversal of what is currently not worthy of the remainder of the Bill.