Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Bill

I shall try to provide some clarity. I will not repeat what I started to say. In essence, we are asking a jury to think about the role that senior management have played in the breach. I think that picks up on the point made by the noble Lord, Lord James, but we shall see. To some extent, Amendment No. 79 could be seen as helpful. It is certainly the Government’s view that health and safety should be managed from the boardroom down, and the Health and Safety Commission recommends that boards appoint one of their number to be the health and safety director. Whether or not an organisation has appointed a health and safety director could be indicative of the organisation’s overall approach to health and safety matters. However, there are two reasons why we should be reluctant to amend the Bill in this way. First, Clause 8(4) makes it explicit that jurors may have regard to any other factors that they consider relevant, which is a point that the noble Lord, Lord Henley, alerted us to earlier. This is important, as it would not be possible to list all the factors that might be relevant to a gross breach of a duty of care. Of course, it follows the current law where jurors consider all the circumstances of the breach. So whether or not the organisation had appointed a director responsible for health and safety could form part of the jury’s consideration, because it could be indicative, without the need to have this in the Bill. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, there is a risk that if an organisation had appointed a director for health and safety but that this was essentially lip service to health and safety, a defendant could point to that very fact and discourage jurors from finding a gross breach. The defence could probably argue, ““Well, look, we appointed our director. It is their responsibility. It tells you that the culture in the organisation is right, so we do not think that it would be right for us to be convicted””. It would be unwise to run that risk, and I invite the noble Lord to think about that very carefully. The amendment spoken to by the noble Lord, Lord James, would point juries to consider the extent to which junior employees were acting negligently or outside the instructions of senior management. Juries will already be able to consider that, but this amendment would further reassure organisations that corporate manslaughter charges would not be based on the failures of individuals who were relatively junior in the organisation. Although we agree that organisations should not be found guilty in such circumstances, we believe that subsection (3) already makes this sufficiently clear, in particular when considered alongside Clause 1. Noble Lords will recall that Clause 1 ensures that senior management must have played a substantial role in the gross breach in the duty of care. The noble Lord, Lord James, may tell me that that does not provide him with sufficient clarity, and we may have to try again. I hope that the explanation that I have provided, and the Bill, do not prevent jurors taking into account the additional factors raised by the noble Lords, Lord Lee and Lord James, in seeking clarity. There are real dangers in these amendments and I have made those fairly clear. I invite the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.