"We welcome the final publication of this consultation document and the fact that the government is finally taking corporate crime seriously.

We support the Government's support for reform of the law of corporate manslaughter which will make it easier to prosecute companies for a manslaughter like offence.

However, we have the following concerns.

We are concerned that the Government intends to give the Health and Safety Executive the responsiblity for the investigation and prosecution of this new offence in relation to workplace deaths.

This is for the following reasons:

1. The offence of corporate killing is supposed to replace the current offence of corporate manslaughter. Manslaughter is one of the most serious crimes in British law. Prosecution for such an offence should clearly rest with the Crown Prosecution Service, not with a regulatory agency.
   
   
2. What is justification for allowing companies to be prosecuted by a regulatory agency, when individuals will continue to be prosecuted, for the same offence, by the Crown Prosecution Service. This will tend to downgrade the crime of corporate killing in comparison to the other manslaughter offences concerning individuals.
   
   
3. By giving investigation and prosecution responsibility to the HSE, the new offence is being symbolically downgraded from being a serious "crime of violence" to a "regulatory" offence.
   
   
4. The HSE has problems in iinvestigating and prosecuting companies for the offences for which it currently has responsibility. The Centre for Corporate Accountability gave evidence to the Select Committee on Environment, Transport and the Regions that showed only 20% of workplace death and 1% of major injuries result in a prosecution, when the expected level should be much higher.
   
   
5. Such a proposal would lead to a great deal of confusion between the Crown Prosecution Service and the HSE. Which of these bodies will look at the evidence and determine whether (i) both the company and a director, or (ii) only a director, or (iii) only the company will be prosecuted? Will it mean that the CPS will no longer look at the evidence relating to the culpability of directors or managers? If the CPS will still look, will there be two agencies looking at the same set of facts - each of them separately deciding whether a prosecution should take place for a manslaughter-like offence? The CPS is in a better position to prosecute for all manslaughter-like offences.
   
   
6. There is already concern that the enactment of the new offence of corporate killing may well have the unfortunate result of allowing individual directors or managers who have acted with gross negligence to escape prosecution as individuals. This likelihood could increase, if the CPS is responsible for the prosecution of individuals whilst the HSE is responsible for companies.
   
   
7. If the HSE is involved in prosecution, this is likely to marginalise the police from investigation. In our view this will mean that the quality of investigation would be reduced and it is less likely that there will be consideration of whether a director or manager may have acted with gross negligence.