---

Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Bill

My Lords, I support the amendment. I shall be brief because all the points that I would have wished to make have already been made. It is said that one litmus test of any society is the way in which it treats those which it holds in custody. As I understand it, in any civilised society, ““custody”” applies to anyone who is detained by any servant of the Crown. I speak as a police officer for more than 30 years. I see no reason whatever to exclude the police from the effects of this Bill. We can be proud of the police service in this country, but that is not to say that mistakes do not happen from time to time or that at times, rare though it may be, things go wrong. So why create doubt in the minds of those within the services and why create doubt from those who look inwards at it? I believe that if we were to support this amendment it would send all the right signals internally and externally. Indeed, to exclude it would send, quite obviously, all the wrong signals. I saidthat I would be brief, but the point needs to bemade that I support the amendment that has been so fully and expertly put to this House by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham.