The Royal Society for the Promotion of Health (RSPH) welcomes the presentation of the Corporate Manslaughter Bill. On inspection of the consultation document the Society is satisfied that the Bill is comprehensive and consideration was made of the comments received in response to the consultation in 2000.

  The Society wishes to make two comments for clarification regarding the draft Bill: In both instances the Society proposes that the text of the Bill be revised to provide further clarification.

  Firstly, it is important to clarify the order in which this bill would be applied to an organisation. For example, would corporate manslaughter be used after the Health and Safety Executive had sought and achieved criminal convictions for breaches of health and safety legislation or due to the severity of the offence which Corporate Manslaughter would imply and the unlimited fines proposed in the Bill would the corporate manslaughter legislation be used firstly with the relevant heath and safety legislation breaches cited at the trial and then only used for criminal conviction after the corporate manslaughter charge was dropped/was unsuccessful?

  Secondly, we would suggest that the text of the bill be amended to clarify whether success in achieving a conviction under the new bill be admissible to allow criminal conviction for other breaches or to allow a successful civil claim against an organisation or liable individual.

17 June 2005