Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Bill

I, too, hope that the House does not reject the amendments in this group that the other place has sent us for consideration. I shall make three brief comments about those amendments and the Government’s amendment in lieu. First, I join in the general acclaim for the way in which the Minister has dealt with the legislation and the amount of movement that he has caused the Government to make. However, in doing so, he has put himself and the Government in a somewhat odd position. He has, as my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Harborough (Mr. Garnier) said, conceded the principle that deaths in custody could potentially be subject to corporate manslaughter prosecutions. Having conceded that principle, the Minister goes on to argue that the reason why those cases should not currently be subject to corporate manslaughter prosecutions is that there will be further protections for those in custody later, and that the Government are working hard—I take him at his word on that—to ensure that there are other measures, some of which he spelled out, which ensure that, though the present position is unsatisfactory and there are not sufficient protections for those currently in custody, there soon will be. If that is the Minister’s argument, and if those who are in custody will in future, we hope, be less vulnerable than they are now, their present vulnerability is potentially more deserving of the protection of a corporate manslaughter prosecution than it ever will be. Therefore, there must surely be a good argument for including corporate manslaughter protection for those who are in custody now, if there ever is a good argument for that. I agree entirely with the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey); I see no reason why it should not be now if it could be later. Secondly, when we discuss the matter in the House we should be clear that we are not talking about laying the Prison Service or prison governors open to any false or vexatious prosecution claim. The standard of proof in the matter is high. It is clear from the Bill as it stands—the amendments do not cover this point—that in order to establish guilt of corporate manslaughter and responsibility for a death of that kind, there must be a gross breach of the relevant duty of care. That breach is defined as amounting to a breach of the duty which"““falls far below what can reasonably be expected of the organisation in the circumstances””." The Minister and others have made perfectly reasonable points about the differences between the challenges faced by those in the Prison Service and by those in other situations. That is entirely fair comment, but any jury and any prosecuting authority would be expected to consider those differences and those particular challenges in deciding whether a prosecution should be brought in the first place. By enabling deaths in custody potentially to be covered by the law, we would not be opening the floodgates. We should therefore have confidence that we can include it without that danger. Thirdly, as other Members have said throughout consideration of the Bill, this is a Bill and hopefully an Act which has been long awaited by a great many people. It will be watched and scrutinised carefully by those who have waited so long for it to go on the statute book. It would be tragic if the legislation gave the impression that the private sector is vulnerable to corporate manslaughter prosecutions but the public sector is not, and that in some way protections have been given to those in the public sphere which are no longer, quite properly, available to those in the private sphere. I know, of course, that that is not the Government’s intention, but it would be tragic if that impression were given. I fear that if we exclude deaths in custody, as the Government wish, there will be that danger. It is right that hard cases make bad law. That has always been true and it is true in this case too, but it would be unfortunate if we ended up making bad law by trying to exclude those cases that may be hard for the Government to deal with. For those reasons, I hope very much that the amendments from the other place will be accepted.