Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Bill

My Lords, I have spoken previously on the issue, when I declared my interests, as set out in the register. I am conscious that the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, commented that when the matter was last discussed in the other place no one, in effect, stood up or spoke against his amendment. I certainly wish to speak against his amendment. We need to be sure that the application of the Bill does not have the opposite effect to what many appear to have assumed. The assumption for the Prison Service appears to be that it will reduce deaths in custody. There is no hard evidence that this would be the result. It would be easier for the Prison Service to avoid corporate manslaughter charges being laid for gross negligence where the death is self-inflicted—by a prisoner in a cell on their own, but being regularly checked. It only takes a few minutes for someone to take their own life. With a death in a shared cell, the Prison Service might find it more difficult to resist charges being laid—even where the decision not to leave a recently arrived prisoner in a cell on their own was taken for the best of motives, such as being of help to the prisoner concerned in the light of their state when they arrived at the prison. It is thus possible—possible, not certain—that we would put the Prison Service in a position where it decides to play safe from its point of view, but minimising the risk of corporate manslaughter charges could increase, not decrease, the number of self-inflicted deaths. The desire to hold those who are grossly negligent to account for a death is understandable and right. However, I suggest that we do not start fixing dates until we have evidence—which we do not have at the moment—that the consequence of so doing in the Prison Service will not be to change the operational culture in such a way that it increases, not decreases, the number of self-inflicted deaths.