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Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Bill

No, I am afraid that my time is very limited. The Bill needs to be improved in four areas. We have touched on the scope of the Bill, and the contradictions were well illustrated by my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby and Kenilworth (Jeremy Wright). Partial immunity for the public sector is a matter of degree, and the Select Committee debated the question of the emergency services having some immunity for some of their actions, as otherwise some people might not be rescued because the members of the emergency service had been instructed not to save lives. That would be a dotty state of affairs and the Government have got that right. However, the Government have introduced several other exemptions that are illogical and nonsensical. Why should those responsible for statutory inspections, such as the Food Standards Agency, be exempted from the provisions in the Bill? Why should those responsible for inspecting child protection institutions be exempted? Why should the probation service be exempted from the provisions? I urge hon. Members to consider those points in Committee. The issue of undertakings has been raised by other Members. In particular, the hon. Member for Bradford, North (Mr. Rooney) talked about subcontractors. It is wrong that unincorporated bodies will not be covered by this legislation in the same way as corporate bodies will be. I speak as a partner in a farming business that is unincorporated. If we had a health and safety issue, I should be capable of being sued in the same way as if the business were incorporated. We have heard much debate on the senior manager test. I suspect that much of the discussion in Committee will be on that issue and how one defines it, in this complicated corporate world of global companies in which decisions are taken at many levels. On the issue of territoriality, we have touched on the question of Scotland, but we have not mentioned territoriality beyond the British Isles. The Select Committee raised that issue, because several British companies operate offshore and outside British territorial waters. We have heard about the fishing industry, for example, and we should be able to pursue corporates if a negligent incident happens there. We should also consider whether the Bill should extend to British companies operating in the EU. I commend consideration of that point to the Committee.