Law Weblog

Corporate manslaughter bill defeated, again

Major figures including Lady Thatcher, Lord Howe and the former lord chancellors Lord Mackay and Lord Irvine turned up in the House of Lords this week to vote against the government’s corporate manslaughter bill. The defeat centred on including deaths in police and in prisons, which the Home Secretary John Reid had excluded from the bill. It looks increasing likely that the passage of the bill has halted and yet again, it will fail to make it to the statute book.