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Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Bill

Perhaps I could say what has been worrying me about Amendment No. 4. The words that it adds to Clause 1(1)(b) would defeat the whole purpose of the Bill, which is to confine corporate manslaughter to cases of gross negligence. Gross negligence has been discussed in many cases, going back over many years. Unlike the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lyell, I have the names of the cases in front of me, so I have not forgotten them—they are Bateman and Andrews, in which there was much discussion about whether gross negligence or recklessness was the right test. Those problems were resolved, happily, in a case before the House of Lords called Adomako, which says that gross negligence is the right test for corporate manslaughter. It went on to say what has been said for many years—that gross negligence requires something more than would be necessary to establish civil liability. The problem with the words that the amendment would add is that they substitute a test for ordinary liability in negligence and therefore undermine the basic difference between ordinary negligence and negligence which is necessary for manslaughter.