Backbench Labour MP Frank Doran has introduced a Private Members’ Bill to amend the Health and Safety at Work Act and place a positive duty on company directors to ensure health and safety in their organisations.

Doran used a parliamentary procedure known as the “ten minute rule” to introduce the Health and Safety (Company Director Liability) Bill on 19 January. Under this procedure, the Bill’s sponsor is allowed ten minutes to support the bill and ten minutes for other MPs to comment. The House of Commons agreed and the Bill was formally read for the first time.

In support of the bill, Doran said the current voluntary approach to improving director accountability, such as the jointly-badged guidance from the Institute of Directors and the HSE, is not working.

"We desperately need another approach," he said "one that will bring the responsibilities of the company directors into line with all other employers under our health and safety legislation, and one that will be of benefit not just to the work force but, as the HSE's own research shows, to employers as well.

"Mr Bill will place a positive duty on all company directors to take all reasonable steps to ensure health and safety in all aspects of the company's activities-effectively to put them in the same position as all other employers and to remove a glaring anomaly in our health and safety laws.”

Bills introduced under the 10-minute rule rarely go on to become law. MPs often use the process more as a way of making a point on the need to change legislation or to test parliamentary opinion on a subject.

The Health and Safety (Company Director Liability) Bill is scheduled for a second reading debate on 23 April 2010.