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Health and Safety (Offences) Bill

My Lords, it is always difficult to be seen as criticising health and safety at work or anywhere else, but the Bill raises some questions. I am mindful of the 20th anniversary of the Piper Alpha disaster and the start of the plastics factory disaster inquiry in Maryhill in Glasgow. The noble Lord, Lord Grocott, has brought forward this challenging Bill and explained it well. In this short intervention, I shall raise seven points in the Bill which I do not fully understand, or at least did not do so before I heard the noble Lord’s explanation. First, the Bill seems to be a hybrid between regulatory and criminal legislation. That may not necessarily be a bad thing. Secondly, the Bill proposes the use of a reverse burden of proof; that is, guilty until proved innocent. I have read that this reverse burden of proof has up till now been used only for regulatory rather than criminal offences. Thirdly, the Bill allows for the imprisonment of the body corporate, but it is not at all clear about how the human representatives of the body corporate will be chosen. How will they be selected? This reminds me of the wretched whipping boy supplied to take the punishment of the youthful King James VI in George Buchanan’s schoolroom. Fourthly, I can see considerable impact on minute-takers and pressure on them after each meeting to establish and record who had reservations about each corporate decision. Fifthly, is there not a better reality for corporate imprisonment? Rather than directors or senior staff being imprisoned, is not corporate loss of liberty in fact suspension from trading? Does the Bill not attempt to dismantle the concept of a separate legal persona for businesses? Sixthly, Network Rail has suggested amendments which reduce the imprisonable to those who are personally and identifiably guilty. Seventhly, Network Rail also points out that, without such clarification, someone who had not attended the trial could be imprisoned—a sort of contracted blame-taker. Will the Government support the Bill? I look forward to hearing that my worries about it are ill founded. At this moment, I fear that it will promote risk aversion.