---

Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Bill

I suspect there is probably quite a short answer to the noble Lord’s point. I am grateful to him for having made it. It takes me back to some long debates on charity law that we had in this very Room last year and the year before during consideration of the Charities Bill. The question of trustees arose then. I am sure the noble Lord has a point about ensuring that we have an ample supply of quality trustees into the future, because those trustees do a very valuable job, and no one should assume that it is easy to find them. I know that from my own experience doing charitable work. Where a charity works through a company, it is the company, not the trust, that could be prosecuted. As the trust is not a corporate body, it will not be covered by the offence. Neither does the Bill affect the position of individuals. That may have escaped the noble Lord, although I am not saying that it has. This is solely about corporate prosecutions. Individuals will be no more liable than they currently are under the law, so the deterrent that is rightly of concern here should not come into play because the body corporate, not individual trustees, will be caught by the offence. That important distinction may have caused the noble Lord some understandable concern. I hope that that answer, simple as it is, provides some clarity and assists him.