Demands for tougher laws to enable company directors to be prosecuted following fatal accidents resurfaced on Tuesday after operators of a Glasgow plastics factory, where nine people died in an explosion, were fined £400,000.

ICL Tech and ICL Plastic pleaded guilty to four health and safety charges, after liquid petroleum gas leaking from a corroded pipe ignited in 2004 causing the Stockline plant to collapse, killing five men and four women and injuring 33 others.