Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Bill

I wish to speak to the amendments in this group standing in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Lee of Trafford. I entirely agree with the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Wirral, and I think that we are ad idem on all the amendments in this group. Without wishing to repeat anything that he said, perhaps I may add a couple of points to the very good explanation that he gave as to why unincorporated associations should be included within the scope of the Bill. One point that he did not refer to, which has been drawn to our attention by one of the lobbying organisations, is the human rights issue. When these clauses were debated in another place, it was suggested that the Human Rights Committee had said that failure to include unincorporated associations could lead to our being in breach of Article 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights when applied in conjunction with the right to life in Article 2 because of the discrimination that would apply within the system whereby, if a person was killed by a company, an offence would be committed, but it would not be an offence if he was killed in identical circumstances as a result of the activities of a partnership, trade union, school or other unincorporated association. I think that that is another reason why unincorporated associations should be included within the scope of the Bill. When this matter was debated in another place, it was suggested that there could be unfairness if an offence was committed in a two-partner operation by one partner contrary to the knowledge of the other partner. It was suggested that this would be unfair in relation to a small partnership. But, of course, in the Bill the situation is no different in the case of a small company, where two directors could be in office and one director committed some act or omission that resulted in the company being grossly negligent and the other director was not aware of it. So I do not think that that point is valid. I should prefer, and urge noble Lords to go for, the situation in the Home Office consultation document of 2000, as set out by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, where the Home Office clearly took the view that it was inappropriate to distinguish between unincorporated associations and companies for the purpose of this legislation.