Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Bill

My Lords, I beg to move that this House do not insist on its Amendments Nos. 2, 3, 5, 6 and 10, to which the Commons have disagreed, and do agree with the Commons in their Amendments Nos. 10K to 10N in lieu. The Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Bill returns to us from another place once more. The Bill now hangs in the balance. Your Lordships first sent it to the other place to consider the extension of the new offence to deaths in custody at the end of February. At that point, the other place was content to accept a number of significant changes to the Bill proposed in your Lordships’ House, and on the question of deaths in custody, the Government sought to make substantial, positive progress. Measures were proposed to improve the investigation of deaths in custody by putting the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman on to a statutory footing. That commitment is now in a Bill introduced in the other place. The Government also offered to consider how the Forum for Preventing Deaths in Custody could be strengthened. That goes directly to the issue of seeking to reduce the occurrence of these tragic events in the first place. Since bringing forward these proposals, the Bill has been sent to your Lordships’ House four times. On the three previous occasions, your Lordships indicated dissatisfaction with the movement offered in the other place and asked the Government to reconsider their position. We have done that. I am grateful, as I have indicated on every other occasion on which we have discussed the Bill, for the time that the noble Lords, Lord Hunt of Wirral, Lord Ramsbotham, Lord Lee and Lord Dholakia, have taken to discuss with me the important issues in the Bill. Again, I pay tribute to them for their time. As noble Lords will recall, debate in your Lordships’ House was postponed a fortnight ago for further discussions and consideration. A new Administration and new Ministers recognised that very strong concerns had been expressed during the passage of the Bill, and that it was right for the Government to allow a further pause. Ultimately, however, they reached the same view: that the Government had quite properly paved the way for the Bill to extend to custody in the future, but that to go further at this stage would not be right. The Bill now has two further days before proceedings in the other place must be completed. As the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Wirral, pointed out previously, that period can be extended. However, we must look at the possibility of doing so against the experience of the Bill’s passage between your Lordships’ House and the other place to date. For nearly two months, the Bill has passed between the two. The Government have put a solid compromise on the table. I recognise that this does not deliver all that the amendments adopted by your Lordships would deliver. It is a compromise, and I recognise it as such. That compromise has not yet proved acceptable. In practical terms, there appears to be little to be gained by extending the time available for the offence, simply to prolong the passage of the Bill between this House and the other place. I consider the compromise to be a good one and one on which this House should accept the passing of the Bill. For the Government’s part, the concession that we have offered takes the offence further than we have considered is its appropriate ambit. The compromise opens the door to the offence applying to custody. Recognising the principle of extending the offence, and providing a means of doing so, is a very large movement. On the other hand, the compromise asks that, although the principle of the offence applying to custody is accepted, the power to extend must rest in the hands of the Government. That is entirely appropriate. The further amendments proposed today provide for a specific timetable. It is already clear that the other place is not content to accept amendments that put custody directly in the Bill. Noble Lords must consider how very unlikely it would be, therefore, that in those circumstances, it would agree to the more advanced proposition that puts custody in the Bill and sets a specific timetable for implementation. I want to bring your Lordships’ attention a difference between the amendment in lieu that we are considering today and that which we considered last week. The power to extend the offence applies slightly more widely than to those strictly in custody or detention, and includes people on specified premises. This is to ensure that the order-making power is sufficiently wide to cover, for example, local authority secure accommodation, where residents are not necessarily in custody. It might also be desirable to cover certain other circumstances, which are not custodial, such as approved probation premises. The drafting of this aspect of the power has been improved by showing that it is now clearly targeted. I have nothing further to say. Moved, That this House do not insist on its Amendments 2, 3, 5, 6 and 10 and do agree with the Commons in their Amendments 10K to 10N in lieu.—(Baroness Ashton of Upholland.)