Organisations, companies and public bodies whose gross negligence leads to the death of individuals will now face prosecution for manslaughter under tough new legislation approved today. The Corporate Manslaughter Act, which received royal assent yesterday, follows ten years of campaigning by unions and other groups.
Under the new law companies, organisations and, for the first time, Government bodies face an unlimited fine if they are found to have caused death due to their gross corporate health and safety failures.
The new law will focus the minds of those in companies and other organisations by ensuring that they take health and safety obligations seriously. However, it falls short of making individual Directors liable, although they could still face prosecution under the common law of manslaughter.
Justice Minister Maria Eagle said, “The Corporate Manslaughter Bill is a ground-breaking piece of legislation. This is about ensuring justice for victims of corporate failures. For too long it has been virtually impossible to prosecute large companies for management failures leading to deaths.”
TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber said, “The catalogue of avoidable workplace deaths in recent years has highlighted in stark terms the need for a change of attitude over safety in UK boardrooms. To make a real difference, we now need to ensure that this law is accompanied by a new legal health and safety duty on directors and a requirement on companies to report annually on their workplace safety culture.”
Only this week figures were published by the Health and Safety Executive showing a rise last year in recorded workplace deaths. In 2006/07 there were 241 deaths compared to 217 in 2005/06. The Act will come into force on 6 April 2008 and the Ministry of Justice will issue further guidance for organisations affected by the Act in the Autumn.
