What is #FamiliesDeserveJustice all about?
Scottish Hazards has supported calls to amend the law on culpable homicide since they were first proposed by an Expert Panel in 2005, then by now former MSP Karen Gillon in 2006 and most recently by another former MSP Richard Baker in 2014.
Our reason for supporting calls for change? To ensure employers who put workers in danger and cause loss of life can be and are held to account!
Nearly ten years after the introduction of the Corporate Manslaughter/Homicide Act not one employer has been charged with the offence 
let alone brought to trial in Scotland.
In that time around 160 people have been killed in incidents at work investigated by the HSE. This does not include incidents investigated by other regulators such as work-related helicopter tragedies resulting in fatalities (AAIB) and deaths at sea such as the Flying Phantom Tug tragedy (MAIB).
The average number of deaths annually shows no sign of significant reduction, a situation which must change!
We should have expected between 14 and 21 prosecutions under the Act in Scotland by now. The fact that not one potential corporate homicide has reached the threshold for proceedings to be issued has undermined the confidence in the legislation within trade unions, safety campaigning organisations and, crucially the families of victims of those killed at work who are denied justice.
Claire Baker MSP sets out her reasons for bringing forward another Bill here: https://www.scottishhazards.org.uk/families-deserve-justice/introduction-from-claire-baker-msp/
At the heart of it all is the fact that #FamiliesDeserveJustice
If you feel as strongly about this as we do, we would ask you to
- read the consultation paper ;
- read the Scottish Hazards response ; and
- submit your own response, using our response as a guide, or else the style answers provided here.
Together, we can help ensure that families do indeed get the justice they so deserve, and that as a result, future deaths are prevented.