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Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Bill

moved Amendment No. 4: 4: Clause 2 , page 2, line 34, at end insert— ““(e) a duty owed to members of the public who may be affected by the way in which the persons referred to in paragraph (a) perform their duties;”” The noble Lord said: My Lords, I shall speakalso to Amendments Nos. 9, 10, 12 and 20. The amendments extend the duty of care owed by public authorities, thereby ensuring that the offence would apply in a situation where the actions of a public body, even in the carrying-out of exclusively public functions, had been so grossly negligent as to cause the death of a member of the public. I do not think that it is necessary for me to repeat the arguments that I made in Committee to the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Bassam. The merit and the virtue in the amendments are clear. As JUSTICE said so clearly in its briefing: "““To create such an exception””—" that is the exception exempting public bodies and public functions from the offence— "““is to state that in those circumstances gross negligence causing death on the part of a corporation is lawful under the criminal law””." The exemption of public bodies could amount to a breach of Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights and Article 13 concerning the obligation to provide an adequate and effective remedy in respect of breaches of the right to life, to which my noble friend Lord Hunt referred in the debate on Amendment No. 3. I made it clear in Committee that I was deeply unsatisfied with the response that I got from the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, and his defence of the Government’s position. His primary point seemed to be that the Government had already made great inroads in rolling back Crown immunity, but then he rather hoisted himself with his own petard by saying that, "““as few of these organisations have Crown immunity as thelaw stands, they are already liable to … gross negligence manslaughter””." The current exclusions from Crown immunity do not so much constitute a comprehensive provision for the application of the offence to public bodies, as the Minister claimed in Committee, as simply restate in the Bill what should already exist in law. I am disappointed that the Government have not taken these amendments on board, even though they have recognised that establishing a duty of care towards the public is in the public interest. Again, I quote what the noble Lord said in Committee: "““The Government recognise the strong public interest in ensuring that government departments and other Crown bodies are clearly and openly accountable for management failings on their part””.—[Official Report, 11/1/07; cols. GC 120-21.]" The simple fact is that public authorities should set an example and be prepared to be accountable for that example. Where a public authority cannot even act within the wide parameters set out by the Bill, where its actions fall far beneath what can be expected of it, it is right that the families of victims of its negligence should be entitled to prosecute those responsible. I beg to move.