Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Bill

It is impossible for me, sitting next to the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, not to want to add my voice to what has just been said. I am rather more of a pessimist than the noble Baroness, Lady Howe. I have a horrible feeling that the Government will put up some ridiculous resistance to what is obviously a totally justified approach. I no longer suffer from the whips and scorpions of the Minister’s noble friends but, when I did, I counted the noble Lord as a friend in a real sense and still do. I ask him—and, through him, the noble Baroness, who is unfortunately not with us today—to put aside those parts of his script that are totally resistant to these amendments and to advance a reply to the arguments that have just been put. I have never heard a speech like that of the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, which is so obviously right and based on primary experience. If the Government resist this, those who have not taken the step that I took a few weeks ago and who go on singing that great number of the 1960s, "““It’s my party, and I’ll cry if I want to””," will have to cry even more. I shall not, because I am no longer bound by the Whip. I shall feel another little piece of justification for that. I beg the Minister to think carefully before any pre-existing script in his hand defies the logic of these amendments.