Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Bill

My Lords, I declare an interest as a member of Amicus and a past president of two of its founder unions, ASTMS and MSF. Like most of my colleagues on this side of the House, I welcome the Bill. The Minister was right to refer in her opening remarks to the ““Herald of Free Enterprise””. There have also been notable rail disasters and the Kings Cross fire. In all those cases, the law was not as effective as it should have been and people thought that justice was not done. For that reason, while I welcome the Bill, I want to put some teeth into it during its passage in Committee and on Report. The Minister appeared to say that a principle of the Bill is to make large corporations responsible. A large corporation can quite easily accept financial liability without any detriment whatever. I and, I am sure, others will argue that there must be some individual responsibility as well. The noble Lord, Lord James of Blackheath, described in what I thought was a cavalier way the case of people killed while standing in front of a casting to have their photograph taken, and the example of people being ordered to work harder and losing their lives. Someone should be responsible. If those within companies were responsible and faced the threat of going to prison, then health and safety would achieve a higher priority than in the past. It is important to realise that, because we are talking about people’s lives being at risk. That is why I welcome the Bill, but, at the same time, I shall seek to improve it. There is no doubt that companies themselves do not kill people; it is the people working in responsible positions for companies who are responsible for the disasters that have occurred. That is why we must make sure that they are brought to account. We must address also the question whether it is sufficient for companies to be fined or whether there should not be a climate of naming and shaming them for the actions that they have perpetrated. That goes also for the individuals involved. It has always seemed strange to me that if a person is a director of a company and there is no financial probity in that company, they can be disqualified as a director, yet causing the death of somebody in that company brings no disqualification. We should certainly be looking to ensure that directors and senior executives who are responsible for these events are disqualified and not allowed to be directors of other companies. We should try to prevent disasters occurring. That is why we should talk not just about companies but individuals as well. I and my union believe that a statutory duty should be placed on the directors and senior executives of all companies to take responsible steps to address health and safety in order to prevent these events taking place. I hope that the Minister will give us some movement on this during the passage of the Bill. On the evidence of the contributions today, the Bill will have very interesting Committee and Report stages. I thank the Minister again for approaching these matters in a spirit of co-operation. She spelt out effectively what the Bill contains. It is a step forward, and I welcome it. She also said that if a reasonable case is made, it will be listened to and, if necessary, action will be taken on it. I look forward to tabling and discussing amendments and, perhaps, to improving the Bill still further for the benefit of ordinary people.