Clause 9 - Requirement to investigate
Railways and Transport Safety Bill
9:15 am
Mr Don Foster (Bath, Liberal Democrat)
Good morning to you, Mr Hurst, and to the Committee?
I listened with interest to the questions raised by the hon. Member for Vale of York (Miss McIntosh), and I have considerable sympathy with many of her points. She is right that the Committee deserves more information about what regulations may contain and a better understanding of the Government's thinking on various aspects of the Bill. That is also true for clause 9. The hon. Lady will have several points to make, so, not wishing to steal her thunder, I will concentrate solely on two aspects.
I am looking in particular at subsection (2)(a). Subsection (1) says that the inspector will be able to
''direct that any railway accident or railway incident of a specified kind or which occurs in specified circumstances shall be investigated by each person who managed or controls, or participates in managing or controlling, all or any part of railway property.''
The chief inspector will rightly be able to direct persons to carry out investigations by the industry. However, subsection (2)(a) says that the directions
''shall specify the manner in which the investigation is to be conducted.''
My reading of that is that the direction will detail how the investigation is to be carried out. That is interesting because it implies that the rail accident investigation branch and chief inspector will tell the industry body—a train operating company, Network Rail or a rolling stock operating company, for example—how to go about an investigation rather than allow it to use any relevant expertise to search for the cause of that accident or incident.
It is equally interesting that having said that the chief inspector will specify the manner in which the investigation will be carried out, the direction appears not to detail the issues that the investigation will cover. Will the Minister make it clear that nothing in the direction will prevent an industry body from investigating any aspect of an accident or incident from which it believes it can learn lessons to improve future railway safety?
My second point is about subsection (6). Earlier parts of the clause specify that if a direction is given to a person to carry out an industry investigation and the person fails to do so, he or she will be deemed guilty of an offence. That is understandable. If there is a clear requirement to carry out an investigation and a person refuses to do so, there must be some sanction. However, I have some difficultly in understanding why subsection (6) says:
''But in proceedings against a person for an offence under subsection (3) of failing to comply with a direction it shall not be necessary to prove that he was aware of the direction.''
Will the Minister explain in what circumstances it would be appropriate for someone to be deemed to be guilty without clear evidence that they knew that they had been issued with a direction to carry out such an investigation? There may be good reasons for that, but it would be helpful for future cases if the Minister stated firmly for the record the cases in which the Government believe that the subsection is important and should apply.