The purpose of this Act is to create a new offence of corporate manslaughter (corporate homicide in Scotland). This follows a proposal in the Queen's speech at the opening of Parliament on 17th May 2005 (see notes at Bills before Parliament/2005 Queen's Speech ).

The Bill received Royal Assent as the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007 on 26th July 2007. There are official explanatory notes to the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007 on the OPSI website.

The main parts of the Act criminalising gross failures in the management of health and safety causing death came into force on 6th April 2008 (see the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007 (Commencement No.1) Order 2008, SI 2008/401). It is understood that the (controversial) parts dealing with death in custody are likely to come into effect in April 2011, namely s.2(1)(d) (duty owed to a person in custody etc. to be a relevant duty of care for the purposes of the Act) and s.10 (power to order conviction etc to be publicised).

Prosecution of individuals is not be possible under the Act and an individual cannot be guilty of aiding, abetting, counselling or procuring the
commission of the new offence created by the Act (section 18). This is one of many criticisms of the Act which some have called unworkable - see for example an Association of Personal Injury Lawyers (APIL) Press Release "Corporate Manslaughter Bill should be taken back to the drawing board", June 2005 and even more significantly the comprehensive House of Commons Home Affairs and Work and Pensions Committees' report on the Draft Corporate Manslaughter Bill, 12th December 2005. The government indicated at 2nd reading of the Bill in October 2006 that it would table amendments to deal at least to some extent with these concerns. It proposed an amendment in the House of Lords in February 2007 which goes some way to addressing them (see the full professional version of this fact card for detail).

The Scottish Executive, via Ms Karen Gillon MSP, put forward its own proposals for a Scottish Corporate Manslaughter Bill. This would have included the possibility of prosecuting individuals. However the Westminster Parliament's 2006 proposal resulted in the separate Scottish proposals being formally dropped (in September 2006). One result of course is that the possibility of individuals facing prosecution was dropped for Scotland as well as England and Wales. The name of the Act was extended to include "Corporate Homicide" as that is the appropriate expression in Scotland.

See also notes at Criminal law aspects/manslaughter (employer negligence) and/or at Health and Safety at work/criminal offences and/or at Company Directors/health & safety matters .