Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Bill

I, too, have been troubled by this aspect relating to senior management, for the same reasons as the noble Lord, Lord Wedderburn. There is merit in what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lyell, said about whether delegation would work; I rather suspect that if I was advising a client, I would not suggest that he did that. However, I am troubled by what might happen where there is a certain obfuscation of lines of responsibility and senior management simply fail to take decisions about where lines of responsibility for safety lie. I ask the Government to look carefully at the issue of senior management. I am thinking of decisions taken by foremen in the course of ordinary day-to-day business, and whether the foreman has been given the right training, level of responsibility and resources to enable the employee to carry out in safety the work tasked to him or her. If something happens as a result of decisions not being taken at a senior level, it would be right to hold the organisation responsible. But this is something that needs to be teased out, and I ask the Government to consider the matter.