Plans To Hold Directors Liable For Work Deaths

Company directors could be held criminally responsible for workplace deaths.

Company directors could be held criminally responsible for workplace deaths.

Plans to reform corporate culpable homicide are to be put to Holyrood later.

At present, only a company as a whole can be found guilty of corporate culpable homicide.

The previous attempt to legislate was shelved in the expectation that Westminster would introduce its own law, but the Corporate Manslaughter & Corporate Homicide Act 2007 made companies, not directors, liable for deaths caused by workplace safety negligence. 

Unite Scottish secretary Pat Rafferty said: “Strengthening the law in Scotland on corporate responsibility for workplace safety failures resulting in deaths is long overdue - it’s time to bridge this democratic deficit. 
 
“Throughout the short history of our parliament, Scottish workers have, regrettably, been no strangers to death, from Stockline, the Flying Phantom to offshore helicopter tragedies. 
 
“In 2012/13 22 people died at work in Scotland and the five year average is around 20 fatalities a year - that’s completely unacceptable when we have the power to do something about it. 
 
“The environment is ripe for change. We have a new first minister, a new Justice Secretary and three people vying to be leader of the main opposition party; if they are serious about social justice and want to make Scottish workers safer then they will back this bill - as should the rest of the Scottish parliament.”