Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Bill

I wonder if I may pose a few questions about the amendments. I may be quite wrong, but my impression was that the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, was moving the first amendment on the basis that Clause 6(2)(d) governed the entire situation. That is not quite how I read the provision. Of course, it is right that it refers to the organisation, "““otherwise than on a commercial basis””." There may be something to be said for a little more clarification of the meaning there, but I would have thought it was clear that it does not regulate the organisations listed in the paragraphs that follow. Paragraph (f) includes, "““an organisation providing ambulance services in pursuance of arrangements made by, or at the request of, a relevant NHS body””." That could easily be a commercial operation, if requested or arranged. Paragraph (g) refers to, "““an organisation providing services for the transport of organs … in pursuance of arrangements made by, or at the request of, a relevant NHS body””." One thinks of the motorbikes which often imperil us on the roads when carrying organs, blood and the like, clearly on a commercial basis. Paragraph (h) refers to, "““an organisation providing a rescue service””." As I understand it, that is not confined to non-commercial bodies. That is my first point, which the noble Lord might wish to address further once he has heard the Minister’s reply. The second point relates to Amendment No. 61, and it is surely the real thrust of the amendments. It would add to line 40, which is the phrase ““a relevant NHS body””, the words, "““including any organisation providing healthcare services””." I would have no difficulty with that if it were governed by the same qualification as the paragraphs that I have just referred to; namely, if it was under arrangements made or requests from an NHS body, and perhaps extending even a little more widely to include any informal arrangements made for a NHS district or region. But if it is to include any organisation providing healthcare, which would, as I understand it, include plastic surgery, for which some case could be made, given the extraordinary profit that such centres make, not necessarily very helpfully to the national health service arrangements generally—I mean that in lower case—I would resist it very strongly. I would not include on a par with NHS bodies any organisations that might be purely commercial organisations which are, very questionably, approved of by those who think of healthcare in a particular area or district. The noble Lord who moved the amendment did not really take on the burden that he carries in regard to Amendment No. 61, which would include a vast range of those who claimed that they were addressing the healthcare needs as seen by the people they treated, but not necessarily within a general programme for areas covered by the National Health Service, which is under such strain. Any noble Lord in this Committee who has not read the Financial Times today must go and do so immediately in some natural break or other moment of leisure. There noble Lords will read about the Baker report on BP and the surprising early, or pending, resignation of the chief executive, the noble Lord, Lord Browne. He is one of the most highly paid chief executives in Britain, with the biggest pension pot in Britain, and presided over a culture of a failure to provide for a systematic and governing culture of safety for many years in BP’s organisation. The report addresses mainly what happened in Texas, although, as I said in a Committee sitting, its operations in Alaska and elsewhere, and possibly even in Britain—certainly one refinery that is not now owned by BP—come within the same considerations. I do not say that any healthcare commercial organisation would necessarily run a system of that sort, but I do not really see why as a commercial body it should be on a par other than exactly the same as BP would be under the Bill. However, I reserve my position on whether the Bill would give remedies to the story that is told so clearly and admirably in that great newspaper the Financial Times, which always tells the City and everybody who cares to read it just what is going on.