Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Bill

With regard to the list in Schedule 1, perhaps with the exception of the Prison Service and where local authorities are responsible for children or young people but where one can see that deaths have occurred and might properly come within this provision, it is not immediately apparent where some of these public bodies would ever be likely to be guilty of corporate manslaughter, even if they were incorporated. Defra, for example, is one of the bodies listed. I was racking my brains to think of circumstances when its officials or those employed by the department might negligently handle equipment and so on, give rise to deaths and thus—at least, in theory—render Defra liable. Can the Minister explain one or two of the thoughts of principle—that is what I was hoping to tease out from him earlier—which justify the restriction of these bodies’ liability only to their position as employers or as occupiers of land? Should they handle activities badly and kill someone, what principle would cause them to be exempt?