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Health and Safety (Offences) Bill

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. It relates to the duties under section 7 of the 1974 Act, to which I hope to refer shortly, and how we should approach employees who misbehave. As I said earlier, we should examine the system of work that might put an employee in the position of having to cut corners. As the hon. Gentleman says, some people might behave in that way because they want to skive off early, but some might be put under pressure through a system of work that requires them to cut corners. The best example of that is white van man, who is often given impossible delivery schedules and ends up speeding and having road accidents because he is driving negligently or is too tired. A serious flaw in the operation of the Health and Safety Executive is that it does not—or did not until recently—consider such road accidents to be accidents at work. I think it has recently changed its policy, but there is still an awfully long way to go in terms of how those accidents are recorded and investigated. The HSE still sees them primarily as being a matter for the police to investigate, and may start to investigate only when a major system flaw is found. It has not always seen them as being a major priority. We have to look at the other side of the coin. If someone is issued with goggles and told time and again to put them on but does not do so because they find them uncomfortable, that is significant. However, even those cases prompt the question why the employer has not taken disciplinary action. In the end, even if the employee is 90 per cent. at fault, the employer still bears some responsibility for having not ensured that the rules are properly enforced. They cannot entirely abnegate their responsibility for what happens on building sites, in factories or at other workplaces under their control. There is always a reason why these things happen. It may be a result of cutting corners; it may be because of how the wages are calculated—piece rate, job and finish or whatever. All those things are part of the systems that can lead to the taking of shortcuts and, therefore, health and safety risks. On the face of it, it may look as if it is clearly the employee’s fault, but we sometimes need to delve a little deeper. Let me return to the responsibility of directors. We need to consider how we can make directors personally liable for some of the things that happen in the name of their company. At the moment, if a fine is imposed, even an unlimited fine, it will merely be passed on to the company’s shareholders by being paid out of the potential profits, which may be a little lower, with the result that the shareholders lose out. The shareholders, who have no control, de facto, over what is happening, end up paying the penalty, while the directors escape scot-free. I hope that as the Bill progresses we can see some progress in this respect, and if not in this Bill then in future legislation. The real goal of the Bill is to embed a health and safety culture in every workplace in the country. It is inequitable if some workers are placed at risk by the negligence or carelessness of their employers. Contrary to many press reports, health and safety is one of the hallmarks of a civilised and cohesive society where every person looks after the safety and welfare of their fellow citizens. As my hon. Friend the Member for Crawley said, the 1974 Act imposes not just duties in the workplace but, under section 6, duties on those who employ people, and it extends to the wider general public as well. If somebody is injured as a result of activities on a construction site—the proverbial person walking in the street who has a 2-tonne weight land on them and squash them—the employer will potentially be liable for a breach under the Act, if a prosecution follows. The new penalties are not only about protecting employees in the workplace but protecting the contractor in the workplace and, more importantly, they are a vital protection for the general public. We have seen that in some of the prosecutions to do with train crashes. There has always been an argument about whether, in those cases, prosecutions should have been brought for corporate manslaughter. I am pleased that we now have the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007, which could well provide the answer to that. Families were concerned that when prosecutions were brought under the 1974 Act, the penalties imposed might have been very large—fines in excess of £1 million in relation to the Ladbroke Grove train crash—but the directors did not face personal liability. That is one of the flaws, which I pointed out on several occasions during its passage, of the 2007 Act. However, we are considering an important measure tonight—[Interruption.] It may be tonight by the time I have finished. To achieve the full benefits of the approach that we are considering, there must be a cultural shift in the workplace. Health and safety must become central to the way businesses are run, and businesses must accept that any breach of those laws rightly results in sanctions—severe sanctions if necessary.