Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Bill

I am trying to make two points. First, there would have been no convictions for corporate manslaughter. Secondly, it is so difficult to mount a prosecution for the existing offence of gross negligence manslaughter for individuals that no one gets convicted. That is why the legislation needs to be extended to include individual liability. There would be the same protections that exist under section 37 of the 1974 Act because the conviction of a company would be needed before an individual could be convicted. However, there are cases when the public demand that someone should at least be brought before the courts so that the case can be tested before a jury makes a decision. Workers are killed in most such disasters, but many members of the public are also killed. The trade unions have a fantastic record of fighting for such legislation, speaking up for their members when accidents happen, representing them and giving them a voice. However, the innocent members of the public who are victims have no voice—no one stands up for them. The evidence taken by the Committee from Disaster Action, especially that from people from the Marchioness, was powerful. The Bill provides that private prosecutions may not be brought without the prior consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions, but hon. Members should read the evidence of the people from the Marchioness and about the obstructions that were put in their way by legislative bodies, Law Officers and the legal system, which denied them any opportunity of justice, and then ask themselves whether such a provision is absolutely necessary. We need to reflect on the fact that the DPP does not have a very good track record on the issue. As I said, this is about not revenge, but justice for victims and their families. The Committee made extensive reference to ““exclusively public functions””, which is a curious phrase in the Bill. There is an arbitrary divide between government as a provider and a supplier of a service, because a prosecution can take place in one case, but not the other. The definition is difficult to follow. If the private and voluntary sectors are increasingly going to be involved in the provision of public services, the divide will become extremely grey. Frankly, it would be better if the provision were taken out of the Bill altogether. Deaths in custody are still a highly emotive issue with regard to the police force and the Prison Service. Under the definition, I think that a private prison could be prosecuted, but a public prison could not. This serious issue has caused trauma and distress to far too many people, yet no one is ever held accountable at present and it appears that the exemption will be maintained. There has been mention of whether the penalties should be related to turnover. I welcome the Government’s commitment to consulting the Sentencing Guidelines Council, but if it is fair enough in the context of the Competition Commission that people can be fined up to 10 per cent. of turnover, something of that nature might be appropriate. I accept that in the Bill the fines are unlimited, but relating them to turnover in general terms is a reasonable approach. There is a danger of penalising shareholders. Ultimately, it is not the company that pays—it is always someone else. Most shareholders are pension funds, so penalising shareholders for the actions of individual directors is, in effect, robbing pension funds. We must be careful about that. My final point is on cases involving companies that are foreign owned, as is increasingly the case, and the difficulty of finding the senior management who take the decisions that lead to the action on the ground. Their being abroad can result in no prosecution being possible. A corollary of that, as we have seen far too often in the past, is cases in which a company is found guilty and is hit with a massive fine, and immediately ships its assets abroad. We raised with the Minister the possibility of creating the ability to seize assets—not to seize assets automatically, but to do it when there was a suspicion or fear that something untoward might happen. I am sorry that there is nothing about that in the Bill. The Minister will remember the classic example—I will not name the company involved in case I should not, but it is the asbestos case that arose in Armley in Leeds. It took 23 years for the residents and workers to get justice, but the day they won their victory the company shifted everything to either the Bahamas or the Cayman Islands and the people got not a penny. We would be remiss if we did not remain aware of that possibility and try to deal with it in the legislation. I welcome the Bill, despite its deficiencies. For too long, too many people have paid the ultimate price and too many people have escaped justice. We need to take the legislation a step further to include individual liability, but I hope we will make progress on that in Committee.