I entirely agree with my hon. and learned Friend. The irony of the situation is that health trusts will be covered by the legislation. Generally speaking, when one thinks of health trusts one thinks of the possibility of patients being killed through gross negligence in hospitals. However, in the context of mental hospitals, there is also the possibility that one patient might be killed by another, in circumstances that are so similar to those which are, I think, the nub of the Government’s concerns—I keep trying to understand the nature of their anxiety—as to be identical. The Government are, very properly, willing to make the concession in that context but unwilling to budge in the context of custody within prison cells, police cells or any other form of lawful custody. I find a rather worrying irrationality in that.
I shall wait with interest to hear from the hon. Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore), whose Committee—the Joint Committee on Human Rights—reported on this matter. In reviewing why the Government were unwilling to make this provision, it stated, at paragraph 2.13 of its report:"““Having considered the Government’s arguments, we therefore remain of the view expressed in our earlier report, that the exclusion from the scope of the new offence of deaths in custody and other deaths caused by gross management failure in the public sector where no individual can be proved to be responsible is likely to lead to the UK being found to be in breach of its positive obligation to protect life under Article 2 ECHR.””"
The Government have not dealt with that. If that is the Committee’s view—and it is advised by learned counsel in its deliberations—that must give rise to the prospect that the longer we go on having an architecture that is only partial, not complete, the greater will be the risk of an article 2 challenge if there is a death in custody. That will leave the Government facing embarrassment. It will also leave the Bill found wanting, because it provides a special and particular protection to one state activity that is not based, as in some of the other exemptions such as defence, on the inherent risks that people have to run, but on the fact that, for whatever reason, the state feels that it would be too difficult to extend this protection to individuals in lawful custody. I must say that I find that rather abhorrent, because it is to such people—those who are being deprived of their liberty, often for good reason—that we have a special responsibility.
There has been the nastiest sense—not from the Minister, I might say, but certainly from the Home Secretary on Report—that it was thought to be beneath Parliament’s area of responsibility to pay such attention to such individuals. I was rather hoping that as the Minister’s responsibilities have been transferred from one master to another, we might see a new ethos prevailing. However, I regret to say that the baleful influence of the Home Secretary continues to contaminate Government in a variety of ways, whether in sudden explosions against the European convention on human rights—in Venice of all places; I would have thought that that rather romantic environment might mollify his behaviour—or in the extent to which he still seems to be exercising control over the Ministry of Justice even though he no longer controls criminal justice policy. In view of some of the answers to parliamentary questions about who is responsible for what that I have received in the past few days, I am bound to say that a certain lack of clarity remains as to where responsibilities lie.
When the matter was considered in another place and the amendments were accepted by overwhelming votes by the standards of the House of Lords—the majority was almost 100, with many peers who take the Government Whip supporting the inclusion of the protection so that corporate manslaughter would apply in relation to individuals in custody—Lord Ramsbotham made a powerful, impassioned speech that was nevertheless of the utmost rationality. He made the point that the problem is not policy but good management. The Under-Secretary appears to be undertaking an exercise in courteous weaving to get himself off that spike.
Nobody expects the impossible. People will continue to die in custody and it will be no one’s fault, but the failings have not been of policy. It is possible that the Home Secretary has an attitude that he has kept secret from the House but I would not accuse him of that. I cannot envisage a Minister or policy maker enacting or ignoring policies that will tend to lead to someone dying in custody. I have a higher opinion of the Government—of any Government—than that.
We are therefore considering management. Lord Ramsbotham said that, and he is right. The Under-Secretary must deal with the question of why he appears ready to allow for covering up and protecting those who manage processes badly in the custodial environment. That reflects badly on us all.
Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Bill
Proceeding contribution from
Dominic Grieve
(Conservative)
in the House of Commons on Wednesday, 16 May 2007.
It occurred during Debate on bills on Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Bill.
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