Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Bill

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention. It is clear that there are issues that we need to debate further, and I look forward to discussing them in greater detail in Committee. As my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary said when he outlined the Bill this afternoon, there are differences between us, but we should not lose sight of the nature of what we are trying to achieve in respect of corporate manslaughter. The Bill builds on the health and safety legislation that Labour Governments have introduced over many years, and which we are very proud of, particularly the Health and Safety at Work, etc. Act 1974. The Bill is a short one but as we have heard today, the debate that it has generated is not without contention; there are complex issues that we have to face. However, there is no real argument as to whether the current law of corporate manslaughter is working: it clearly is not. It does not provide justice and it does not apply fairly to organisations. As has been said, this is about trying to bring about a culture change within organisations. As the hon. and learned Member for Harborough (Mr. Garnier) said, the winding-up time has been limited because of the need to ensure that Members were able to contribute to the debate. Many issues have been raised and I shall try to deal with as many as possible; I shall write to Members on those that I am unable to deal with. As the Home Secretary said, we will let Members know about the amendments that we want make, particularly on the liability test. The hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve) expressed the concern that the Bill might not add anything to the existing health and safety legislation. For the families of those killed through the abject failure of organisations to meet their health and safety responsibilities, the Bill is far from pointless. It is important that culpable behaviour be properly labelled, especially to the relatives of those who have died. Several Members raised the question of individual liability. In answering my hon. Friend the Member for Dover (Gwyn Prosser), my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary may at one point have suggested that the Bill might deal with this issue, but he was then very clear and at pains to say that it does not. The problem with the law is that corporate liability is contingent on individual liability. That does not work because the nature of decision making in complex organisations is such that responsibility can rarely be laid at the door of a specific individual, which has made it difficult to prosecute large organisations for manslaughter. The Bill tackles that specific problem. It establishes a new basis for liability that shifts the focus from the conduct of individuals and places it on the management of systems and processes. The Bill is concerned with creating an effective corporate offence, not individual liability. We have heard concern from hon. Members on both sides of the House about the senior manager test. We have taken seriously the points made about the test during consultation on and scrutiny of the draft Bill. Our intention is to make corporations liable when the organisation as a whole has utterly inadequate practices or systems for managing health and safety. We introduced the concept of failure at a senior level to provide reassurance and clarity on the fact that the offence should not capture failures at just a junior level. The measure was widely misinterpreted as reintroducing a form of liability that was reliant on finding individuals who could be taken to represent an organisation guilty of manslaughter. As my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary said, we will bring forward a new test in Committee that will achieve our aims in a way that does not risk the reintroduction of an identification obstacle. We will make the amendment available to the Chairs of the Work and Pensions Committee, the Home Affairs Committee and the Joint Committee on Human Rights, which have played a crucial and central part in what we have tried to achieve with the Bill. Our debate also touched on the position of public bodies and activities not covered by the Bill. It is quite wrong to say that the way in which we have approached this effectively brings Crown immunity in through the back door. The existing law of corporate manslaughter has no application to the Crown at all. We have lifted Crown immunity for the new offence because the Government believe that it is right that the offence applies equally to the public and private sectors when they are engaged in similar activities. It is right that Crown workers are protected by the Bill. The Bill comprehensively covers the Crown’s duties to provide safe systems of work for employees and in the workplace. Enabling the judicial scrutiny of breaches of those duties in the context of manslaughter is an unprecedented step. This is not about applying criminal law to the way in which core Government or public functions are carried out. Carrying out such functions involves fundamental public matters, such as the allocation of limited public resources and protecting the public from harm that is often created by others. My hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, North (Mr. Rooney) asked whether public and private prisons would be treated differently. As far as the Bill is concerned, they are both in for employer duties and the safety of premises, but they will both be out for dealings related to operational prison activities. The debate also touched on deaths in custody and the police. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary made it clear that there are independent inspectorates: the police have the Independent Police Complaints Commission and we also have the police and probations ombudsman. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore), who chairs the Joint Committee on Human Rights, the report of which came out this morning. We will have to take some time to consider the issues raised by the Committee, but we will examine them closely. We believe that the Bill is compliant with the European convention on human rights, but we will read in great detail what has been said. The hon. Member for Hertsmere (Mr. Clappison) asked whether 10 to 13 cases would be enough. That is not a limit, but what we suspect that the number of cases will be. Several hon. Members asked about the Macrory report, which is about corporate sanctions, rather than duties on directors. In Committee, we need to examine the duty of care, directors’ duties and disqualification. However, we believe that they are all affected by other aspects of Government policy, notably the Companies Bill and issues affecting the Department for Work and Pensions. I hope that we have given clarification on points raised about Scotland. The UK has a safety record of which it can be proud, but too many people are dying at work. I commend the Bill to the House. Question put and agreed to. Bill accordingly read a Second time.