Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Bill

That is an interesting concept, because I have not written it yet. We want to ensure that the courts have a range of powers and penalties. More importantly, we want to ensure that not simply the prosecuting authorities but the authorities generally—the Health and Safety Commission, the Health and Safety Executive and others—have a range of powers that allow them to begin to look at the question of how to change the safety culture. The reality of many of the famous disasters—the railway disasters, the Herald of Free Enterprise disaster—is that in the end no one suffered any individual penalty. In individual cases, whether the individual should be so penalised may always be an arguable point. The hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve) is right to say, and I agree wholeheartedly, that there are circumstances where gross negligence by an individual in the corporate setting would lead to the charge of manslaughter under existing common law. That is not a matter of dispute; it is right and proper that that should be the case. What we are talking about here, however, is whether, as part of driving forward safety, we need to introduce not simply the Bill, but new clauses 6 and 7, and indeed new clauses 1 and 4. The profound argument is that we need exactly that change, because we have not been able to prosecute either companies or, in practice, individuals through the route of the common crime of manslaughter. The public—this is why it is not a legal issue; it is about common sense—and the families most directly affected by those tragedies demand of Parliament that we introduce something better than the current law. It is in that context that I advance my argument today. The test of the prosecution case of corporate manslaughter has been very high; it has been gross neglect on the part of companies. However, it has also been necessary to prove that there has been individual gross neglect by directors to trigger the laying of the corporate manslaughter charge. That chain of causality is almost entirely the wrong way round. The hon. Member for Beaconsfield and I will disagree on that, but we will be able to prove under the Bill that corporate manslaughter took place as a corporate event. If the gross neglect is by the corporate body, that of itself should lead to that body appearing before the court to face the charge of corporate manslaughter. That is right and proper. Normally for an incorporated body, we look at the sanction of a fine, although it is appropriate to look at sanctions against directors of the kind that my right hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr. Denham) mentioned. Disqualification of directors is a kind of corporate naming and shaming, although it is more specific than naming and shaming because it will prevent them from operating as directors elsewhere. It appealing because, as we know, the former head of Railtrack is facing no sanction whatever for the catastrophes that Railtrack led individuals into. He is cheerfully ensconced elsewhere making a lot of money as a senior corporate officer of another company. That does not make sense to an awful lot of ordinary people. The idea of disqualification is a sensible way forward for those who are not caught in the stronger trap of individual liability of a custodial variety.