§ MR. MARKHAMTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether, seeing that certificated managers of mines are from time to time indicted for manslaughter owing to fatal accidents occurring in their mines, he will issue orders to inspectors of mines that they should instruct the certificated managers to enter into their daily report books all recommendations which they consider essential to the safe working of the mines, and that where colliery managers have brought such recommendation before their employers, he will advise His Majesty's inspector to prosecute the owners in place of the certificated managers where loss of life takes place owing to the owners having refused to give effect to such recommendations of their managers.
(Answered by Mr. Akers-Douglas) The hon. Member is, I think, under a misapprehension; the inspectors of mines have nothing to do with prosecutions of mine managers for manslaughter. So far as prosecutions for contraventions of the 520 Mines Acts are concerned, an inspector would always carefully consider where the responsibility for the contravention really lay before taking proceedings. The inspectors have no power to give the instructions suggested in the Question.