I do not have the full context of what my ministerial colleague said in the House of Commons, but I do not believe that I am in error when I give the reasons for my answers to the various questions that have been posed. As I say, these words are not mere surplusage; they are put in to clarify and limit the extent to which “generally responsible” has an application.
I suggest that this provision is an important but modest reflection of what many people would say was a sensible encouragement of employers to adopt a predominantly or generally responsible attitude to the safety or other interests of others—but which, in appropriate circumstances and subject to the court’s overall discretion, allows these matters to be taken into consideration. That is as far as it goes. It is a modest but, I suggest, sensible addition to the law—and it is an addition to the law, as I think is accepted. Given the clarification I have attempted to give the noble Lord on the limit of the measure’s scope, I invite him to withdraw his amendment.