Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Bill

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising this issue, and I am obviously not getting the point through. It is already the case that directors can be disqualified if they are convicted of an offence related to the management of the company, and that includes health and safety offences. It is already the case that a director can face other penalties, as an individual. What the Bill does is to make the corporation liable to penalties, which is why the term ““corporate”” manslaughter is used. It supplements the existing law, which allows cases to be brought against, and penalties imposed on, directors as individuals. On directors’ duties, which is a different issue, we are not further extending our consideration of those duties—quite apart from the fact that that is the territory of the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, rather than mine—because the matter has already been taken up. The Health and Safety Commission has considered this very issue and it has asked the Health and Safety Executive to produce new guidance precisely on directors’ responsibilities. The HSC will return to this issue in the light of developments on corporate manslaughter, of the report from Professor Macrory—the Macrory penalties review—and of the introduction of statutory directors’ duties under the Companies Bill. In short, directors are already liable to punishment and disqualification in the way that was asked for earlier, and directors’ duties are already being examined elsewhere, separately from this Bill; there may be developments in that regard. In addition, we are introducing the offence of corporate manslaughter, so that the institution of which the person concerned is a director can also be held responsible.