Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Bill

moved Amendment No. 2: 2: Clause 1, page 1, line 3, leave out from ““if”” to end of line 4 and insert ““a management failure by the organisation—”” The noble Lord said: That is indeed very unlikely. Amendments Nos. 2, 4, 7 and 10, which are grouped together and stand in my name and that of my noble friend, pick up on the point made by noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Wirral, during his winding-up remarks on the previous amendment. When the Bill was in another place, changes to the test that should apply for the management of a company to be liable for this offence were made at the end of the debate. I think that I am right that those changes were not debated in Committee in another place nor even referred to in the debate at Third Reading. This test means that we are obliged to look very carefully at whether the amendments that the Government have made satisfy what ought to be the requirements of this legislation. In proposing the amendments, I am grateful to the Centre for Corporate Accountability, which has been quite critical of the new test. The amendments probe whether this Committee can be satisfied that the right test is being applied. The test as it stands does not meet the objectives that the Government have set out. The Government were not correct to say in another place that the ““senior manager”” test has been removed; it clearly remains in the Bill. A gross failure within the management of an organisation will not result in the organisation’s prosecution, unless a substantial element of the gross failure is at a senior management level. Is that right and should it be the case? It is not correct that the question at the heart of the offence is whether the organisation as a whole has failed, since no offence will have been committed unless senior management played a substantial part in the gross failure that caused the death. The Government said in another place that an organisation should not be found guilty if there was only a minimal element of senior management failure in the gross breach. A number of people feel that that is the wrong way to put it and that an organisation should not be found guilty if it had taken all reasonable steps to avoid a gross failure at a lower level within the organisation. This articulation, which is at the centre of these amendments, clearly supports the Government’s message that health and safety should come from the top of organisations. The most significant concern that a number of us have about the new test is that the change from the requirement for all the gross failure to be at senior management level to the requirement that there be a substantial element of the gross failure at senior management level does not ensure that companies where systemic failures cause deaths would be brought to account. Therefore, it does not satisfy the original purpose of the legislation. I look forward to hearing the remarks of other noble Lords, who I know are concerned about this. I urge the Government to look again at this test. I beg to move.