Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Bill

I say to the Minister that I acknowledge that the Government have moved quite a long way—certainly in comparison with the Bill on Report, when we heard a rather acrimonious intervention from the Home Secretary—and I thank him for the courteous way in which he has engaged with me and other Government Members on many occasions in order to move this particular issue forward. I believe that he has searched constructively to find a compromise that we can all live with and it is important to note that the Government’s alternative concedes the basic principle directly in the Bill, which is a major step that we all welcome. I have been campaigning for a corporate manslaughter Bill for all but 20 years, ever since I was professionally involved in the King’s Cross fire, representing victims and their families. When I started that campaign, I did not think that I would still be arguing about this particular issue now, but it is a very significant matter and probably the only outstanding point that we need to argue about in relation to the Bill. I share the concern of others about some of the shortcomings in the Bill as a whole, but we are making some progress here. The key is to think about the Bill’s purpose. As the Minister explained, we hope that it will never need to be used, because if it is used, it reveals a failure, highlighting an avoidable death that has come about as a result of gross negligence. The Bill is all about encouraging people to take steps to ensure that such deaths do not occur when they could be prevented. The hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve) challenged me over the matter of article 2. He made a strong point, but the real question is whether the Government’s package as presented today goes some way towards meeting their obligation under article 2, which is not to bring a prosecution but to protect the right to life of citizens, including those in custody. If there has been a serious breach, there should be a prosecution of those involved or, in the case of an organisation, of the organisation concerned. The hon. Gentleman made the fair point that the Government might still be vulnerable to an article 2 case in the European Court or under the Human Rights Act 1998 in the domestic courts. I think, however, that what is going on here will make the Government a little less vulnerable. The key question relates to when the measure would be brought into effect, and I will come back to that point later. The fact remains that, since the Joint Committee on Human Rights expressed its views in its second report on the Bill, things have moved on through the package that the Government are introducing today. We are trying to protect vulnerable people, by one means or another, from dying in custody. The first part of the three-element package is the decision to put the prisons and probation ombudsman on a statutory footing, which is welcome. The ombudsman provides an independent focus for investigations into deaths and a proper level of scrutiny, as well as facilitating the involvement of the victim’s family. They can also create a degree of public confidence that an inquiry carried out within the system could not. It is clear that the ombudsman should be placed on a statutory footing; this has been the Government’s position for some time, as my hon. Friend the Minister mentioned earlier. The provision was supposed to be in the 2005 Bill, which fell because of the general election. On 9 February, Baroness Scotland wrote to me in my capacity as Chair of the Joint Committee, saying that the Government wanted to introduce the measure at the most appropriate opportunity. The ombudsman has been investigating deaths in custody since April 2004 and has gained some expertise in the field. However, if we are to satisfy the other place, we need to establish some time frames for the proposals. When does my hon. Friend the Minister envisage that ““appropriate opportunity”” arising? If it does not involve a Bill in the present Session, I hope that one can be introduced in the next Session, after the Queen’s Speech. We need to make rapid progress on this matter. My hon. Friend mentioned the forum on deaths in custody, which was the subject of one of the key recommendations of the Joint Committee’s third report of the 2004-05 Session. We published a progress report on the subject in our seventh report of the 2006-07 Session. I pay tribute to Baroness Stern, a member of my Committee and of the forum, not only for her work on the forum but for her stalwart campaigning on deaths in custody over many years. The forum comprises 15 different organisations and it is welcome that the people involved have been brought together. I also welcome the Government’s proposal that the forum should be strengthened. The real question involves the ways in which that might happen. The Committee received a note from the chair of the forum, John Wadham, with the Government’s response to the progress report that we published in March this year. He raised a number of issues, and I would like to hear my hon. Friend the Minister’s response to them. The first relates to the coroners rules. My hon. Friend has not said anything about those rules, but now that he is in the Ministry of Justice that matter comes under his new responsibilities. I hope that he will be able to tell the House whether the powers that need to be changed will be changed to require responses from organisations to coroners’ recommendations. That is long overdue, and if we cannot have a new draft coroners Bill for some time—which is clearly the case—the rules will need to be amended, as recommended by the chair of the forum. Further issues identified by the forum include the prisoner escort record, a key handover mechanism that needs to be strengthened, and access to the police national computer by the Prison Service as part of its risk assessment activities in identifying prisoners at risk and taking steps accordingly. Those are all aspects of good practice that need to be dealt with. Perhaps my hon. Friend will confirm that those issues will be looked at. On a broader front, the chair of the forum, Mr. Wadham, makes the point clearly that the Government must ensure that the forum"““has the power and resources to act””—" not just talk—"““when it feels it necessary.””" In particular, the forum should be able"““to influence member organisations to improve practice (and to respond to bad practice)””." Mr. Wadham makes the particular point that this ability could be"““enhanced if the Forum were, in the future, to be chaired by someone entirely independent.””" I presume that he does not consider himself to be formally in that position. We are looking for those elements to be part of the reform of the forum, and perhaps my hon. Friend the Minister will confirm that he has those sorts of things in mind. More resources, more capacity and more interaction with Ministers are all welcome, as has been mentioned, but the forum has come up with those specific points so far. On the amendments, it is important that the Government have considered the principle, but I am concerned about the width of the discretion and the time frame. I would have preferred ““shall”” to ““may””, as that would have imposed a stronger obligation on the Minister to keep the position under review and to act on such reviews. Inevitably, there are concerns about the width of the discretion in specifying the forms of custody, the description of the premises, the circumstances to which it applies and exceptions to the rules. I hope that my hon. Friend will flesh out the Government’s thinking on that. The key issue must be the timetable. Is it the intention that the provision should come into effect once the additional prison places start to come on-stream in larger numbers? One of the concerns is about prison overcrowding. Is it the intention to enact the measure within a timetable that shows the effect of the other reforms proposed in relation to the forum, the ombudsman and the coroner? If my hon. Friend is to satisfy the House, and convince their lordships that they should accept his proposals in lieu of their own, he will need to go a little further.