Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Bill

My Lords, I, too, have just been to the meeting with the Prison Officers’ Association. As the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, will confirm—and this rather surprised me—they said that this was the first meeting they had ever had with parliamentarians. That is astonishing considering they are in the front line of all these problems. They are very open-minded about the Bill’s provisions and the extension to prisons, as the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, has said, but that is in the Bill with the order-making power so let us not talk at cross purposes. They said—and the noble Lord, Lord Waddington, may confirm this—that they needed to judge the extension to prisons in the light of the manifold problems they have to face, not least the radicalisation of some classes of prisoners, which has been debated in this House, and the lack of work and educational facilities. The balance of all these problems is a factor for consideration. If we want to change the culture of prisons—and that is prima facie what this Bill is in part about—it is obviously not just a question of adopting a clause or not. It is a hugely more complicated matter. The Government have themselves made the point that the talks which need to take place and be a precondition for triggering the order are not yet taking place. I would like to put the emphasis on those talks. The Prison Offers’ Association—let me put it another way for those people who have rather fixed ideas about what a trade union is, what it is for and what it does: the representatives of the prison officers are in the firing line. The responsibility they have for the day-to-day handling of many difficult problems is not just a question for the prison governors—and we may hear from a former prison governor—but there is the significant matter of the morale and involvement of the Prison Service if that culture is to change. I hope that my noble friend will be able to say that full and, I trust, positive consideration can be given to the request that the Prison Officers’ Association should be involved in any talks—not hypothetical talks but talks which we will be assured will take place in the not-too-distant future, sooner rather than later. But defining our terms is not for today; in the light of all those considerations, putting a date in the Bill is not the right way to proceed.