Clause 35
Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill
9:00 am
Edward Garnier (Shadow Minister, Justice; Harborough, Conservative)
I beg to move amendment No. 153, in clause 35, page 25, line 4, at end insert
‘, including an offence under the Corporate Manslaughter Act 2007,’.
May I say what a total and unalloyed pleasure it is to see you back in the Chair, Sir Nicholas. You are quite right: we made good progress under the chairmanship of Mr. Frank Cook and we are grateful to him for stepping in to assist you and Mr. O’Hara.
I do not wish to add to the gloom of today, but I want to talk a bit about corporate manslaughter and investigation into deaths. We are discussing the remit, the powers and the role of Her Majesty’s commissioner for offender management and prisons. We have debated his accountability to the Secretary of State. We would prefer him to be accountable directly to Parliament, but for one reason or another, even if I did not lose the argument, I certainly did not persuade the Committee of that.
However, I want to tease out from the Government what the commissioner will be able to do. In relation to the investigation of deaths, it is important that we understand from the Government precisely what their policy is with regard to deaths in custody. Hon. Members will remember that we had some vigorous debates on the Floor of the House earlier this year when we discussed the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007 about whether deaths in police custody or prisons might attract investigations and possibly prosecutions under the Act’s regime. As I remember, the compromise that was reached eventually was that, while accepting that corporate manslaughter should bind upon the Prison Service and the police, the Government acknowledged that there would be a delay of about three years.