The Safety Offences Bill in the Lords

I've just been reading the second reading debate in the House of Lords on the Health and Safety Offences Bill (just to recap, a Private Member's Bill on higher fines and potential prison sentences for health and safety offences, which looks likely to get through because it has government support).

You get a better class of debate in the Lords. The Earl of Mar and Kellie (the title's from Fife) raises some points about the Bill, some of which are answered, but i do love his turn of phrase:

"...Thirdly, the Bill allows for the imprisonment of the body corporate, but it is not at all clear about how the human representatives of the body corporate will be chosen. How will they be selected? This reminds me of the wretched whipping boy supplied to take the punishment of the youthful King James VI in George Buchanan’s schoolroom. Fourthly, I can see considerable impact on minute-takers and pressure on them after each meeting to establish and record who had reservations about each corporate decision. Fifthly, is there not a better reality for corporate imprisonment? Rather than directors or senior staff being imprisoned, is not corporate loss of liberty in fact suspension from trading? Does the Bill not attempt to dismantle the concept of a separate legal persona for businesses? Sixthly, Network Rail has suggested amendments which reduce the imprisonable to those who are personally and identifiably guilty. Seventhly, Network Rail also points out that, without such clarification, someone who had not attended the trial could be imprisoned—a sort of contracted blame-taker."