Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Bill

I do not disagree with the hon. Gentleman about attacking the culture. Having spent a lot of my professional life prosecuting for the Health and Safety Executive, I am perfectly conscious that one can come across examples of very bad safety culture, pervading even the director’s office, and not just the lower managerial levels; I accept all that. It may be that prosecutors were insufficiently proactive in the past, but I hazard the suggestion that the reason there have not been many convictions among company directors for manslaughter through gross negligence is that, in truth, there was no evidence on which to convict them. Although they may have been culpable of negligence, they were not culpable of gross negligence. Of course, there are one or two cases in which such directors were convicted, and the Lyme bay tragedy is an example. However, the hon. Gentleman must accept that it may be harsh to make such a judgment when something goes wrong, particularly in large organisations, in which directors cannot necessarily know what goes on, day to day, at the bottom of the organisation—although, from the point of view of safety culture, they must make it their business to endeavour to do so. One could tell a director that there were negligent structures in their company, but to say that the situation was so bad that the director was grossly negligent is going a step further. If the evidence exists, they should be prosecuted for manslaughter, regardless of whether they are the director of a massive public company or not; we should prosecute in such cases. However, we should not say that if a corporation is convicted under the new law, it follows that a director can be sent to prison, if negligence can be shown. Really, that is all we are saying. A contribution to negligence is all that the hon. Member for Hendon requires. A mere contribution would be sufficient to send a director to prison. I do not know about the queue of directors going to Pentonville prison, but the danger is that if we introduce such a measure, there will be a very long queue of people who do not want to be directors of public companies. One must take a realistic view of the situation. My view is that the Bill may make a contribution to improving safety culture by shaming companies, and some of the provisions for dealing with remedies, which we shall come to later, may help, too. I am pleased that the Government have introduced further amendments on that subject. However, the proposal before us drives a coach and horses through perfectly clear and established legal principles. For those reasons, I really cannot support it.