John Reid Threatens Scrapping Of Manslaughter Bill

The home secretary, John Reid, threatened to scrap the Manslaughter legislation if the House of Lords insisted on extending it to cover deaths in prisons and police cells.

In the event, the government was defeated in the House of Lords 5th Februrary vote when peers overwhelmingly voted to include deaths in prison and police cells as part of the new corporate manslaughter measures.

Peers voted by 223 to 127, a majority of 96, to extend the provisions of the new law to the prison service after an impassioned speech from Lord Ramsbotham, the former chief inspector of prisons and now a crossbench peer.

The bill was originally intended to bring in tougher penalties for companies causing deaths of workers by negligent management in industry, or fatalities and injuries to passengers in public transport. Peers opted to widen its jurisdiction despite a warning from the home secretary, John Reid, that he would drop the entire bill if it was extended to prisons and police cells.

They may have been spurred on by an ambivalent response by Lord Goldsmith, the attorney general, who pointed out that corporate manslaughter laws would apply partly to the prison service under the new laws, even without the peers' amendment. He disclosed that if management did not maintain a prison properly or breached health and safety laws in cells and workshops, they could be prosecuted. But if they illegally restrained inmates or put black prisoners into cells with white racists, they would not.

The prime minister was later forced to respond to John Red's threat follwijng the vote, when he appeared at the Commons Liaison Committee. Mr Blair said that ministers would now look at the Bill again before deciding how to proceed.

Asked by Labour MP Andrew Dismore, a member of the liaison committee, about the possiblitity of the government withdrawing the Bill rather than accepting the amendment, he responded by saying:

"I have not heard that, I must say. No, I think it is important that we have the Bill but we are going to have to make up our minds on this. Our desire was to try and accommodate reasonable opinion as much as possible; it is just that, as often happens in government, we have two very diametrically opposed views as to what the right thing to do is and we need to try and make a balanced judgment about it."

Source: Guardian

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