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Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Bill

My Lords, I thank not only the noble Baroness, Lady Scotland, for taking the Bill through part of its passage, but particularly her colleague, the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, who was so ably assisted at earlier stages of the Bill by two of the law officers, the noble and learned Lord the Advocate-General for Scotland and the noble and learned Lord the Attorney-General. As we explained at Second Reading, we believed that there was a better way of going about this Bill, as my colleagues made clear in the Commons, whereby some use might have been made of health and safety legislation. Having said that, and having failed to persuade the Government of the virtues of those ideas, we made it clear that we were prepared to give the Bill a good passage, and the Bill has had a fruitful passage through this House. We are grateful to the Government for conceding three considerable substantial points following amendments tabled by my noble friend Lord Hunt of Wirral, who sends his apologies that he is not able to be here today. Those were: the inclusion of partnership, trade union and employers’ associations in the ambit of the Bill, the inclusion of the power to order a company to publicise its conviction, and the acknowledgement in the Bill that this new offence goes hand in hand with health and safety legislation. Again, they are all welcome additions to the Bill, for which we have been pressing since its inception in the Commons. I turn to the much bigger amendment, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, on deaths in custody. I remind the Minister just how overwhelmingly that amendment was passed, not only by this side of the House but also by the Cross Benches and the Liberal Democrat Benches. The Minister will know well from her discussions with her noble friend the Government Chief Whip how many of her own colleagues either supported that amendment, quietly abstained or voted with the Government with considerable misgivings. Given the overwhelming support for that amendment, I hope that we may have some kind of assurance that the Minister will do all she can to persuade her honourable friend the Home Secretary to consider it very favourably when it returns to the other place. If the other place wishes to overturn it, we on these Benches and others throughout the House would certainly wish to consider it further when it comes back to us.