Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Bill

I have listened with interest to the Government’s position, as set out by the Minister. This is really a question of common sense. There was a problem at our previous sitting. Looking around this Room, I see all the people who have had the benefit of a legal education. I will not indulge in the sort of rudeness in which Lord Beloff used to engage on the topic of people whom he regarded as not having had the benefit of an Oxbridge education. I am worried that I am in completely the same camp as the noble Lord, Lord Wedderburn, on this issue. On that basis, I am reflecting whether I am wrong, but I do not think that I am. Those of us in this Room who have trained as lawyers—I can count six who have done so, although there may be others who have failed to disclose it—will remember from studying the law of tort that the concept of a relevant duty of care, which we are asked to assume is the cornerstone of prosecution under the Bill, was developed in common law over a number of centuries in a series of random decisions. There was no logical brain sitting at the centre of the law that determined where a relevant duty of care emerged. It evolved totally randomly over the centuries, as the common law of this country does. In the Bill as it stands, we are being asked to accept by the Government that that random collection of relevant duty-of-care, common-law decisions should be the basis of the creation of this new criminal offence. Cutting through to the commonsense approach suggested the other day by the noble Lord, Lord James, we are saying to company directors that they have to assess the concept of a relevant duty of care that has been built up over centuries, and they will have to get out Salmond’s Law of Torts to study what those relevant duties of care should be. The simple question why a gross breach of a statutory duty should not be an offence seems to be rejected by this Government, and I fail to understand why that should be. I shall read with interest in Hansard what the Minister says, but I am sure that we shall return to this matter on Report. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.