Government Bill to tackle corporate manslaughter

Home Secretary Charles Clarke has unveiled plans to make it easier to prosecute companies when fatal accidents occur.

Under the proposed Corporate Manslaughter Bill, it would become a criminal offence if someone were killed because senior management "grossly failed to take reasonable care for the safety of employees or others".

Under the current law, prosecutors need to prove that a single individual at the very top of a company is personally guilty of manslaughter in order for a case to proceed.

The new offence would allow courts to examine a wider range of management conduct and focus responsibility on an organisation's working practises, rather than individual's gross negligence.

The maximum penalty for the offence would be an unlimited fine, rather than a custodial sentence, because companies would commit the offence, not individuals.

The new proposals would apply to Crown bodies, such as government departments, as will as the wider public sector and industry. The Home Office said that this would create "a broad level playing field" between the public and private sectors.

However, there are areas that would be exempt from the new proposals, including public and private prisons and services provided by the government during a civil emergency. NHS Primary Care Trusts would also be protected from prosecution for failing to allocate funds to a particular area of patient care.

In the last year, 235 workers were killed at work and more than 30,000 employees suffered major injuries. However, only 11 company directors have ever been convicted of manslaughter following a work-related death and of those, only five were imprisoned – five others received suspended sentences and one was given community service.

The Home Secretary said that the existing laws were neither clear nor effective. Mr Clarke said: "The draft Bill covers an extremely complex area of law and it has taken time to get the proposals right. The draft Bill aims to ensure that the law is effective in bringing organisations to account when they have shown a clear disregard for the law with fatal consequences for members of their workforce or others."

The Transport and General Workers Union (TGWU) said that the proposals were a "significant step" towards safer workplaces, but expressed concerns that the Bill did not require directors to take positive steps on health and safety. The TGWU said that this could mean that the courts would not be able to apply the new offence in cases where individual company directors neglected to maintain safe workplaces. General Secretary Tony Woodley said: "The draft Bill is a chance to ensure that health and safety is taken more seriously in the boardroom, that workers' health is protected through a culture of prevention and that justice is done when tragedies do occur."

(KMcA/SP)