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Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Bill

I have been very generous to Members, and I think that if I were to start on a second round of giving way, we would still be stuck here by the time the vote is cast. I think that I have now pointed out the differences. We have continually considered carefully exactly how the exemptions in the Bill should be framed. We will want to make several refinements to the Bill in Committee, although I do not claim that they will be extensive. I will write to Opposition spokesmen and their colleagues to keep them informed of the refinements as soon as I can. The Bill is limited, yet important. I do not claim that it will do everything that everyone wants—that is why I say that it is limited—but I do claim that it is important in several significant ways. I believe that it will meet a specific failing in our criminal law. It will enshrine in law a more effective offence of corporate manslaughter that will properly target corporate failures and, for the first time, it will remove Crown immunity. In short, the Bill will make justice possible for those who are killed at work owing to gross corporate negligence. It can never remedy those losses or compensate for the bereavement that individuals and families have suffered, but I hope that it will go some way towards meeting their claim that justice ought to be extended right across the spectrum when it is demanded as a result of corporate culpability. I thus commend the Bill to the House.