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Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Bill

rose to move, as an amendment to Motion A, leave out from ““House”” to the end and insert ““do insist on its Amendments Nos. 2, 3, 5, 6 and 10 and do disagree with the Commons in their Amendments Nos. 10F to 10I in lieu.”” The noble Lord said: My Lords, I am most grateful once again to the noble Baroness the Leader of the House for the way in which she has explained her case and pay great tribute to her for the fact that she has been at great pains to consult and keep those of us interested in the amendments in the picture—in the loop, as it were—of what has been going on. I know that it has not been easy for her, not least because, at the time, she has been taking over other responsibilities. Therefore, we were extremely pleased when she came with the information that the Secretary of State for Justice was minded to include custody in the Bill and asked if we would be happy if there were a delay while he considered. We were immediately happy to give that assurance and did so. I wrote to him saying that I was extremely happy and glad that he was doing that. We were happy to consult with him if he would like that. Because ““time”” and ““if””, as opposed to ““when””, were mentioned in the previous letter, I suggested to him a date that might be acceptable to everyone in this House. That was a date sometime ahead: 1 January 2009, which gives a considerable amount of time for all the concerns that the Government have expressed to be considered. I speculated that I could have conducted four four-month tours of duty in Belfast during that time, and I was always asked to do rather more than merely consider that. Therefore, I was extremely concerned when, on Friday, the noble Baroness came to say that, unfortunately, the Secretary of State for Justice had now withdrawn what he had offered. I can only speculate on what had encouraged him to change his mind. In taking the step that he had of agreeing, as I understood it, that both custody and the private sector should be included in the Bill, there was no point in pressing for a time, because it would include both. Therefore, the Bill, which everyone welcomes and wants on the statute book, could be proceeded with as quickly as possible, knowing that both sets of victims—who are the object of our concern—were included in the Bill. It would be invidious of me to repeat all the arguments that I and other noble Lords have made many times as to why that should be, because this House has now voted three times showing that it understands those arguments, which are not party-political. As we were invited to consider, this is a matter of doing a good that has long been needed. The noble Lord, Lord Morris of Handsworth, challenged Ministers, if they declined to include custody in the Bill, to look in the eyes Mrs Edwards, Mrs Campbell, Mrs Day, Mrs Mubarek, Mrs Aziz, Mrs Bailey, Mrs Rickwood and Mrs Myatt, to name but eight whom I have mentioned in this debate, whose sons or daughters died while they were in the hands of the state, and explain why it is that they, as victims of government policy, should not be treated in the same way as victims of a private sector company. As I said before, we in this House now have a real opportunity to do good. I realise that pressing the Motion for a fourth time may seem like stubbornness and going near the constitutional limits of the rights and privileges of this House. I do not want to go further than would be constitutionally wise, because I respect, as always, the gravity, the wisdom, the humanity and the decency with which this subject has been treated by Members on all sides of the House in our debates on it. To put it at its deepest, we are trying to stand up for the victims of the state against the state, because I cannot for the life of me see why the Government should not recognise that they are responsible for good management on the part of their managers. That is a matter not of public policy or public expenditure but of actual detail. Therefore, I beg to move. Moved, as an amendment to Motion A, leave out from ““House”” to the end and insert ““do insist on its Amendments Nos. 2, 3, 5, 6 and 10 and do disagree with the Commons in their Amendments Nos. 10F to 10I in lieu.””.—(Lord Ramsbotham.)