Corporate manslaughter and anti-protestor laws announced in Queen's Speech

Corporate manslaughter and new laws against animal protestors forms part of the Queen’s Speech announced today (Tuesday).

As part of the 32 bills unveiled by the Queen, mention was made of a new draft bill to make it an offence when a death occurs because of a company failure.

However, there is still no commitment from government to turn the draft bill into law and the implementation of such a bill is likely to be delayed.

Unions have been campaigning for years for the introduction of corporate manslaughter legislation.

Responding to the speech UCATT general secretary Alan Ritchie said: “If the government doesn’t make corporate killing a top priority in the coming months, so we have legislation in place before the next general election,  there will be no deterrent to bad employers.”

In a bid to stop a repeat incident at Oxford University where contractor Montpellier pulled out of its £18m animal research laboratory contract in July after suffering abuse from animal activists, the Queen has introduced a new law to protect against attacks.

In changes to the current law the Queen announced that it would now be an arrestable offence to distress people by protesting outside their homes.

An approval for the construction of the £10bn Crossrail project was also mentioned in the speech.