Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Bill

moved Amendment No. 46: 46: Clause 5, page 4, line 34, leave out subsection (1) and insert— ““(1) Subject to subsection (5), subsection (3) shall apply where— (a) it is established that a public authority owed a relevant duty of care to a person, (b) the duty of care was owed in respect of— (i) operations within subsection (2), (ii) activities carried on in preparation for, or directly in support of, such operations, (iii) training of a necessarily hazardous nature, or training carried out in a necessarily hazardous way, in order to improve or maintain the effectiveness of the police with respect to such operations, or (iv) policing or law enforcement activities which do not fall within section 2(1)(a) or (b), and (c) it falls to the jury to decide whether there was a gross breach of that duty of care.”” The noble Lord said: I shall also speak to Amendments Nos. 47, 48, 53, 54 and 57. I understand that the group also includes Amendment No. 52 and the Question whether Clause 5 should stand part, tabled in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Lee. I appreciate that some of the arguments that will be put forward both on this side and by the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, will be similar to those we have heard in regard to Clause 4, on military activities. However, I hope that we can still exercise them, and I certainly look forward to hearing what the noble Lord hasto say. This group of amendments seeks to cancel the blanket exemption in regard to the deaths of civilians caused by the gross negligence of the police or other public authorities in the performance of policingor law enforcement activities, and to cancel the exemption in regard to the killing of members of the public and employees of a police force which occurs in connection with operations or training for dealing with terrorism, civil unrest or public disorder in which the police come under attack or face the threat of attack or violent resistance. There is nothing inherent in the nature of the work carried out by organisations involved in law enforcement that justifies their exemption from criminal liability for causing death by negligence. I will not say anything at this stage about the de Menezes case, but obviously it comes to mind. Amendments Nos. 46, 53 and 57 address the core of the matter by removing the exemptions and replacing them with the requirement for the jury to take account of the situation in which the police or other law enforcement authorities were in when assessing whether there has been a gross breach of a relevant duty of care. Rather than the present blanket exemption, the wording in the amendments would ensure that the jury would be required to conclude that the body’s conduct had fallen far below what could reasonably be expected in the circumstances—I emphasise the words ““in the circumstances””. That consideration would be circumscribed by the mitigating factors that the jury would have to take into account under Amendments Nos. 53 and 57. Amendments Nos. 48 and 54 offer two alternative methods of applying the duty of care owed by policing and other law enforcement organisations to members of the public. Amendment No. 54 simply cancels the blanket exemption of policing duties by rerouting the application of the clause through the amendments that I proposed to Clause 2, which would extend the application of any duty of care owed by organisations. Amendment No. 48 would ensure that, were Clause 5 to remain as it is, it would not apply where the duty of care that was breached was owed to members of the public. Again, it refers to amendments to Clause 2. I beg to move.