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Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Bill

That is a nice invitation from the noble Lord. I go back to the point that I made earlier, that there is a danger in singling out just one element of guidance, which in a sense this amendment invites us to do. It asks that every organisation should have a director who is responsible for health and safety. That is fine as it stands, but as I pointed out earlier it runs the risk of producing a tick-box mentality where people say, ““Yes, we’ve got one of those. Problem solved. We can forget about it””. There is a downside, and I invite noble Lords to think about that risk. I understand that some further reflection is being undertaken about the guidance relating to health and safety issues, so in that context it may well be an issue which requires further thought in any event, although we are talking about issues of negligence here. However, it is an important point, and I have registered it. I do not think it is appropriate to put it in the Bill in the way suggested for the reasons that I have set out, but that is not to say that the issue is not important. Obviously it is important, and we want to encourage organisations to adopt a robust approach to health and safety issues so that the instances where an organisation has to be tried for corporate manslaughter are greatly reduced. If that is the case, the legislation will have been successful, and people will recognise that.