John McDonnell
RT HON JOHN REDWOOD MP Reading Evening Post 6 6 7
On Tuesday the Commons debated whether the new offence of corporate manslaughter should apply to some government activities as well as to private companies. This Bill creates a new legal action where senior executives or officers of an organisation have been grossly negligent, resulting in the death of employees, customers or others.
In the Lords an amendment was passed which would include the prison service in the list of organisations to whom the Bill applies. The government objects, believing that deaths in custody should not be examined in the same way to see if any of them resulted from gross negligence by staff.
This is not a trivial dispute. There is a principle at stake. The Trade Unions who pressed the government to introduce legislation against corporate manslaughter saw it as yet another means to pressurise – and in some cases to prosecute – company directors. There are some who seem to believe that directors of private sector railway companies put profits before passengers, and need to be brought to heel. They did not think about its application to the public sector.
When the government came to draft it, they did see they had to allow its application to parts of the government as well as to companies. As always, they also saw the need for some substantial exemptions for themselves.
Over 200 armed services personnel have died on duty since 2000. The armed services on active service are not protected by this legislation, even though there could be cases where the death of the soldier, sailor or pilot might result directly from the failure to supply protective clothing or from the provision of unsafe equipment.
The emergency services are also left out in a number of circumstances.
In 2003 183 people died in custody. In 2004 it was 206. In 2005 it was 174. This is an increase of more than a half over the levels of ten years earlier, which were even then high. The Minister who had to explain this omission from the Bill had no argument on why it should be left out. Like many junior ministers in such a position he seemed unable to defend the government’s view robustly, and like so many Ministers in this government has was unable to handle the detail or to demonstrate good understanding of what we were discussing. The House was forgiving, as colleagues who knew the situation well clearly felt he had tried to move the government to a more sensible position but failed.
I raised the issue of the 5,890 people who died in 2005 where hospital acquired infections were included on the death certificate. The Minister first confirmed this would not be covered by the Bill, and subsequently thought it would. We need to use every means possible to bring these dreadful figures down, including bringing charges of corporate manslaughter if anyone dies owing to gross negligence.
It seems important to me that legislation should be fair between the public and private sectors. The truth is many more people die as a result of the actions and inactions of government than as a result of the actions of private companies. There is no reason why any death connected to a public service activity should be exempted from someone asking the question Did this result from gross negligence? The battle over deaths in custody (which can include innocent people awaiting trial) is an important dispute in a wider war, as Parliament tries to turn a partisan anti company measure into a fairer piece of general legislation.
No sensible business puts profits before safety. If you operate in a competitive market compromising safety is not only against your natural instinct to want your customers to be safe, but against business commonsense. Any airline or railway company which gets reputation for being lax on safety will find it difficult to attract passengers. The problem in the government sector is that the services concerned are monopolies. Whilst public servants, like private company employees, would not wish harm to their customers, monopoly can foster a laxness or complacency about safety that would not happen in the competitive market. That is why, where the government is legislating to raise standards, it must apply through the government monopoly sector.
