THE DIRECTORS' DUTIES BILL
The Directors' Duties Bill presented in Parliament on Friday 4th March failed. While the vote in the Commons was won, the Bill will not progress because only 28 MPs voted for its second reading - not enough under Commons rules for the measure to move onto its next stage.
If you sent a letter to your MP asking to support the Bill you might like to ask why he/she failed you.
Mr. Stephen Hepburn (Jarrow) (Lab) began:
"I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
I am proud and honoured to be able to present this Bill to Parliament on behalf not only of all the workers in the United Kingdom, but of the families who have suffered from bereavements in the workplace. Some of them are in the Gallery today.”
The discussion made it clear that a change in the law is necessary and was summed up by Mr. Hepburn's question:
"Why do we need to impose statutory duties on directors? The law is not consistent. How can that be fair? How can we justify the fact that, if a director financially mismanages his company, he can go to jail for seven years, yet if through his gross negligence, he causes the death of an employee, he can walk away scot-free? That simply cannot be justified? The law is inconsistent and the law is not just."
Mr. Dismore responded:
"The Bill does not specifically refer to the offence of corporate manslaughter. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is very important that the Government introduce their long-promised proposals on the issue and that, of course, they should include the public sector as well as the private sector?"
Mr. Hepburn:
"I welcome those comments. I welcome the Government's proposals, but I do not think that they go far enough, to be perfectly honest. The Government have turned around and said that they would introduce a corporate manslaughter Bill and reform company law. Although they may suggest that their Bill on corporate manslaughter will introduce harsher penalties, we will still be in the same position unless there are statutory duties. The point of the Bill is to introduce statutory duties for directors in the same way as there are the statutory duties on employees and even on the public. So why should companies and company directors not have the same statutory duties?
The law is not just. As I have said, the HSE report refers to 620 workplace deaths, yet only 23 directors were convicted. Throughout that period, the average fine imposed after prosecution was £6,500. The law is clearly unjust and unfair. Hon. Members may say that section 37 of the Health and Safety at Work, etc. Act 1974 states that, if a director is negligent, he can be prosecuted. In fact, that cannot be done under the current legislation because a director does not have statutory duties in the workplace. The company has those duties, and the director can hide behind that fact."
For the full transcript of the debate click here.
The Government's policy is voluntary. It simply offers encouragement to employers to take responsibility for ensuring that risks to employees' health and safety are properly controlled. I ask two questions, “since when did a voluntary approach work!” and “doesn’t a high-risk industry deserve better thinking than this sloppy approach?” In aviation, the historical method of dealing with mistakes made within this system is to call it “pilot error”. That technique of dealing with errors in the management chain leave the public with the impression that it is one man’s mistake ie it will not happen again. Read the list of Recommended Publications on this site and you will see how mistaken that assumption is.
The campaign will continue.
Recommended Publications
- Weir, Andrew. (1999) The Tombstone Imperative. Pocket Books.
- Schiavo, Mary. (1997) Flying Blind, Flying Safe. Avon Books. New York.