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NEWS ROUND-UP |
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The Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Bill has reached the “ping pong” stage of its passage through Parliament. As reported in Issue 1, the House of Lords had introduced amendments into the Bill so that the offence covered deaths in custody. The House of Commons rejected these amendments, proposing instead that the Bill should include a power for the secretary of state to extend the definition of “duty of care” to include duties owed under negligence law to those in custody. This would have left the possibility of extending the new Act open, without actually committing to it at this stage. The House of Lords considered and rejected this proposal on 22 May, insisting on its original amendments “because it is appropriate that a relevant duty of care should be owed to anyone held in custody”. Judging by the Commons’ published response to this on 24 May, which puts forward another provision containing the same power, the two Houses are currently deadlocked. For a discussion of the Bill, see Issue 1. Readers can follow the progress of the Bill at: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/pabills.htm. |
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Corporate Manslaughter Bill: the debate continues See CLM: ¶2591, ¶7178 |
