Offender Management Bill

I am sure that what the hon. Gentleman says is right. Indeed, nowadays the courts can read what a Minister says, in doing their best to construe an Act of Parliament. He will remember, I hope, that about an hour and a half or so ago we were talking about the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Bill. The issue was whether the Government should include in that Bill the period in which the Prison Service and the police should be brought within the corporate manslaughter regime. The Government seemed to be hugely reluctant to do that. Unless such matters are in that Bill, there will always be a good reason not to do something. I earnestly urge the hon. Gentleman, with the greatest of diffidence, to apply his mind to his experience of what this Government—and indeed all Governments—do unless they are required to do something by the law of the land.