asked Her Majesty’s Government:

Whether they have assessed the extent to which the prosecution of Network Rail for the Paddington crash was in the public interest.

My Lords, it was clearly in the public interest to prosecute. The independent inquiry by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Cullen, described there having been,

“a serious and persistent failure”,

to deal with the recognised problem of signals passed at danger in the Paddington area. Thirty-one people were killed in the crash. The Crown Prosecution Service applied the Code for Crown Prosecutors and held that it was in the public interest to prosecute. I entirely agree with it.

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply. The crash happened when Railtrack was in charge of the network, but the network is now governed by Network Rail, so totally different people were prosecuted. The operator that failed to train its driver was fined, and I have no quarrel with that, but since the accident Network Rail—or should I say the taxpayer?—has spent £500 million on installing a train protection and warning system to prevent such an accident from happening again. I want to press the Minister on whether there was any guilty mind on the part of the people who were prosecuted, because it seems that the mens rea in this case was absent.

My Lords, the defendant pleaded guilty to the offence. That seems to me to be quite significant. As the noble Lord will know, the responsibilities of the former body were passed to the new body. I see no difficulty with this at all.

My Lords, given that the layout at Paddington was devised by British Rail prior to privatisation, that it was approved at the time by the Health and Safety Executive, that it was installed by Railtrack or its contractors and that the prime cause of the accident was, as the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, implied, the tragic failure on the part of a driver to stop at a red light, how is the public interest best served by prosecuting Network Rail, which was in no way involved, and in effect fining the taxpayer?

My Lords, so far as the cause of this terrible event was concerned, it emerged that in the Paddington area there had been no fewer than eight occasions when that signal had been passed at danger. Those responsible for the infrastructure ought to have held signal-siting committees to determine what to do about that so as to avoid what ultimately came about, which was that a driver missed that red signal with terrible consequences, as we know. The issue of fining public bodies arises from time to time. Where a serious crime is committed, even by a public body, it is right to mark that and bring some degree of accountability. It is also right to impose a penalty to deter not just that body but others from committing similar offences in the future.

My Lords, who determined the public interest in this case? Was it the Health and Safety Executive, which brought the prosecution, or the CPS? Were the law officers consulted and, if so, did they give their opinion on what was in the general public interest, having regard to the history of corporate failings to which the noble Lord referred?

My Lords, as I understood it, the noble Lord actually referred to the failings of the driver, not to corporate failings. The decision was taken by the Crown Prosecution Service, which prosecuted the case. The service consulted the law officers and me. As I have made clear to the House, I agreed with its view.

My Lords, in the opinion of the noble and learned Lord the Attorney-General, what difference would it have made to the prosecution if the proposed offence of corporate manslaughter had been available?

My Lords, I do not absolutely know. It is possible that, if the Bill had been passed in its present form, there could have been a prosecution for corporate manslaughter. It would have depended on determining tests that were not necessary for this prosecution; namely, whether there was a gross breach of duty and a senior management failing. But it is possible that that offence would have been made out.

My Lords, my noble and learned friend appears to suggest that the design of the layout outside Paddington was wrong. As my noble friend Lord Snape said, that was done by British Rail and approved by the Health and Safety Executive. Is not the situation a bit odd, given that after British Rail designed it and it came into operation, it was taken over by Railtrack, after which Network Rail took over responsibility when Railtrack failed? It is a long way from Network Rail accepting all the obligations and liabilities from Railtrack to the company being prosecuted for something that was done two predecessors ago.

My Lords, I repeat: the company accepted its responsibility for the liabilities that had been passed to it. It is not so much the design outside Paddington as the fact that the signal was for some reason obscured and not visible. No one really knows why the driver drove through that red light. There had been eight incidents in which attention had been drawn to drivers passing that signal at red. It ought to have been looked at and a new solution found, as it subsequently was when a system was put in place under which, if a driver passed that signal at red, the brakes would automatically come on. Had that system been in place then, this would never have happened.