Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007 (Commencement No. 3) Order 2011

Debate between Baroness Royall of Blaisdon and Lord Goodhart

Tuesday 5th July 2011 Grand Committee

[Lord Goodhart]

My Lords, I would like to step in briefly on this matter. The law dealing with the liability of corporations for offences, or matters for which the corporation has been responsible, has been inadequate in recent years. In particular, to make the corporation liable for homicide, as in this case, or for other purposes, it has been necessary for it to be shown that not only was the corporation itself negligent but that negligence could be attributed to a directive member of the corporation. Therefore, I very much welcome this particular piece of this particular order.

I should mention also that a recent and important change in this law came into effect a couple of days ago with the Bribery Act, which makes liability for bribery subject not to any particular identification of any particular individual who is responsible but simply to the incompetence of the corporation itself. Therefore, I very much welcome this particular amendment.

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon]

My Lords, I, too, welcome the orders. As the Minister said, at the time of the passage of the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007 there was much discussion about this issue in both Houses. It was absolutely right that the Bill should encompass this particular aspect, because it is important that an organisation can be found guilty of manslaughter if the way in which its activities were managed or organised causes a death. That is absolutely right. It is particularly important for the victims’ families because they need the certainty that such deaths can be properly investigated and authorities brought to justice.

I have only a couple of questions. My first question relates to the custody suites in the UK Border Agency and the Ministry of Defence. Is it intended that there will be a review of those specific holding and detention areas? Like the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, I would like an assurance that those in the private sector who are responsible for the custody and transporting of offenders can also be brought to justice.

In the other place, a member of the DUP asked whether or not there had been discussions with the Northern Ireland Assembly. It was not absolutely clear from the Minister’s response what discussions had taken place with the Assembly. I realise that they are a separate entity but it is important that discussions should take place between the Assembly and the Government and I would grateful for information from the Minister.

Public Bodies Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Royall of Blaisdon and Lord Goodhart

Monday 28th March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goodhart]

My Lords, I have again tabled an amendment that I tabled in Committee, and which is now Amendment 72A. As my noble friend Lord Taylor says, the amendment involves a sunset clause. We now have government Amendment 72, which is a sort of sunset clause—it gets the clause going halfway down, towards the shadow, but not quite going the whole way. In view, however, of Amendment 72 and its wide range of supporters, I will support on this occasion Amendment 72 rather than my own amendment. That does not mean that I think that Amendment 72 is better; it is certainly a step forward but I am not convinced that it is in fact better than a simple sunset clause would have been. The effect of Amendment 72 is that after five years the Act will in reality be dead, but somehow it will be brought back to life by new primary legislation. That seems rather a clumsy arrangement, but if others wish to try it, so be it, and, as I said, I will support it.

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister. We certainly support him in his Amendments 60 and 69C and we are especially grateful for the work that the Government have done on omnibus orders. We think that they have arrived at a sensible and proper solution, as the Minister said.

As for the sunset provision, when we first broached this subject in Committee, the Bill was a very bad one. That is why we wanted to sunset the whole Bill. Since then we have genuinely engaged with the Minister and reached a very good compromise. Since Committee the Bill—its content and its architecture—has been radically transformed. Although my noble friend Lord Hunt will seek further change to the Bill's architecture at our next sitting on Report, we are content that the sunsetting of the schedules is adequate. We believe it right and proper that at the beginning of every Parliament there is the potential to have what would in essence be a new Public Bodies Bill. However, we also believe that the architecture is such that it could be maintained while looking again at the schedules. By sunsetting the schedules, the bodies that are currently in the schedule will have the comfort of knowing that if nothing has happened to them within the four or five-year period, they will be free, as it were; and the bodies that are not included will know that they can continue to work efficiently and effectively without a medium-term sword of Damocles hanging over them. We are therefore very grateful to the Minister for the changes to which he has agreed, and we look forward to the adoption of the amendments in question.