Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Bill

moved AmendmentNo. 76A: 76A: After Clause 7, insert the following new Clause— ““Trustees A duty of care owed by a person only in his capacity as a trustee shall not constitute a relevant duty of care.”” The noble Lord said: This amendment reflects a concern I have expressed since our first meeting with the noble Baroness, Lady Scotland, the day before we began our consideration in Grand Committee. I have heard no reference at all to this issue and it continues to concern me greatly. I should declare an interest as the chairman of two trusts, although I do not think that either of them has any impact here. The Bill is completely silent on the question of the responsibility or obligations of trustees. This may seem to let trustees off the hook, but, having been prompted yesterday, I have to admit that while I am an amateur in the matter of law, I hope that I am a professional in the matter of running companies, having served as chairman of 10 public companies over the past 20 years. In that time I have come to understand that the responsibilities of a director evolve upwards on to the trustees of a charity that owns the corporate entity on which that director serves. If that is the case, then the trustees are caught by that inference for anything which is amiss in the conduct of a corporation on the part of the directors. They share in the responsibility, which could become a buck-passer’s charter for a board if it allows that responsibility to devolve to trustees. That could be seriously detrimental to a number of interests within our community. Let me give some examples of this. In many cases charitable trusts own what might be called ““dangerous assets””. They own mountains or ski slopes, or sailing ships that are used for training of young people. These are areas in which there is a considerable risk that injury or death can occur. But the charities themselves in most cases work through the ownership of a corporate entity, which administers the assets vested in the trust. Those corporate entities have board members who are paid salaries to run the business professionally. The trustees are effectively the shareholders of the ultimate beneficiaries of the trust, working on their behalf to see that the assets are properly administered for them, but they do not directly manage those assets. I can see a situation here where a great injustice will be done to trustees. They are already an endangered species and good ones are very hard to get today. People are unwilling to step forward and offer their services. Trustees could be held accountable for the liabilities of serious damage claims that arise in a way which is unfair in a situation where the corporate entity had maladministered the assets to the point where a death had occurred. If that were to happen, there would be two levels of injustice, one on the trustee himself for being so persecuted, and the second because the corporation would not itself be the party held to account in terms of being fined or liable to pay compensation and so forth. If this is a correct analysis of the situation, so that the trustees have to accept ultimate responsibility for the corporate directors, we will find that there is a dearth of people who are prepared to serve in the vital role of trustee throughout our leading charities, leading to a great loss of expertise and skills. Trustees are in the main unpaid people, usually with considerable business and commercial experience who are at the end of their careers, and they will not be prepared to put themselves into situations as risky as this. Accordingly, I ask for these words to be included as a means of clarifying once and for all that trustees will not be held accountable for corporate manslaughter and that the liability will remain where the name of the Bill implies that it should; at the corporate level. I beg to move.