Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Bill

moved Amendment No. 3: 3: Clause 1, page 1, line 4, leave out ““or organised”” The noble Lord said: The debate continues. We are trying to understand how the Government are approaching the identification of where the responsibility lies. My noble friend Lord James of Blackheath has greatly assisted the Committee by reminding us that there are true-life examples that we have to test. My noble and learned friend Lord Lyell is right in saying that we should remind ourselves why the case that he mentioned was stopped, so that we can see whether this legislation will meet the point. We must think carefully about all the practical cases that my noble friend suggested, and reflect on the extent of the responsibility and how it is defined. The noble Lord, Lord Brennan, knows full well that very clever legal minds will apply themselves to the legislation, but I reckon that we have cleverer learned legal minds in this Committee and that we can ensure that what we enact will stand the test of time. It should also stand the test of those clever legal minds that will be applied to find some way around these carefully thought through definitions. So it is that we move to Amendment No. 3. When I looked at Clause 1(1), I could not quite understand why the Minister and his colleagues had put in the phrase ““or organised””, because we had been focusing on management. At the moment, the offence is clearly set out that an organisation, "““to which this section applies is guilty of an offence if the way in which its activities are managed …""(a) causes a person’s death, and""(b) amounts to a gross breach of a relevant duty of care owed by the organisation to the deceased””." But I have omitted the words that my amendment would remove. The Government have felt it necessary to say, "““the way in which its activities are managed or organised””," which draws into the whole question of the offence the organisation of the company. I would love to know what exactly the difference is between the way the company’s activities are organised and the way they are managed, because again I detect that very careful minds will be focused on this phraseology. Can the Minister explain what lies behind the Government’s wording? I beg to move.