Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Bill

That is indeed helpful, and it is exactly the sort of time frame that I would have expected. It highlights, if I may say so, the difference between what will be done to everybody else, and what will affect the Prison Service, the custodial environment and the police. The right hon. Gentleman earlier prayed in aid the health and safety legislation. As I think he knows, that is the area in which I practised in the years before coming to this place—[Interruption.] I did not introduce the legislation. I prosecuted on behalf of the Health and Safety Executive or local authorities, or represented those who got had got themselves into trouble. Defendants who had killed their own employees—that happens all the time—used to say, ““It’s all so difficult. Bringing about the culture change in our organisation has proved so problematical. We do our best, but sometimes things go wrong. We accept that, and if we only had longer, we might have avoided this.”” There are great lamentations, to which Parliament has responded serially with the word ““Tough””—That is, ““Tough maybe, but we want to bring about the culture change, and you are going to have to take the necessary steps to meet the requirements.”” What troubles me is that what we are hearing from the Government is, ““The culture is going to be so difficult to change and we don’t want to press the services all that much.”” This is not an issue that can be dictated by the current problems in the Prison Service. Let me tell the right hon. Gentleman why. I am sure he would be the first to admit that the idea that over the next 100 years the Prison Service or the police will not have to cope again with periods when there are problems of overcrowding is a fantasy. That has been a perennial issue for a long time, yet I detect that he is waiting for a magical moment when suddenly the problems of the Prison Service are sufficiently assuaged that the measure can be implemented. However, the issue is a managerial one, and it is precisely in periods of difficulty that the services will be put on their mettle. The idea that that will lead to some terrible problem is wrong. If they carry out their duties properly, even if there are deaths in custody, there will be no risk of prosecution. It is in cases where there has been gross negligence, which is what we are discussing, that the services will be called to account.