Health and Safety at Work

My Lords, I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, for the passion and commitment with which he opened this vital debate. As the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, pointed out, I am sorry to see that that view is not shared by the Conservatives. There has not been a single Conservative Back-Bench speaker, and for much of the debate, the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, has been sitting in splendid isolation on the Conservative Benches. I pay tribute, too, to the expertise of my noble friend Lady Neuberger, which shone through her speech, and to all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate. My noble friend did a devastating demolition job on the so-called process-driven approach. I was interested in the largely trade union-based speeches from the Labour Benches. In all cases, they spoke with great knowledge and experience. In my 18 years as a member of the Labour party, the unions used to have names that one could recognise as unions. I now find it quite hard work. The noble Lord, Lord Brookman—or perhaps I should call him ““brother Brookman””—laughed about British Steel changing to Corus. ISTC, Community and Prospect rather sound like Blairite think tanks. The noble Baroness, Lady Gibson of Market Rasen, spoke knowledgably on road safety; I particularly liked her ““no mobiles when mobile”” quote. The commitment of the noble Lord, Lord Brookman, to his members is transparent. The ISTC, under him and his predecessors like Bill Sirs, has always done a splendid job. The noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, gave a helpful—for me, as a new boy in this field—historical perspective on the development of health and safety legislation. The noble Lord, Lord Christopher, spoke with interest about problems in construction. I will come on to that later, because construction, together with farming, is obviously one of the really bad areas for accidents at work. The noble Lord, Lord Brett, spoke with great experience. Finally, and perhaps appropriately, the noble Lord, Lord Berkley, talked about construction with great knowledge. The noble Lord, Lord Lea of Crondall, also made his usual thorough and well researched speech on behalf of the TUC. The number of people killed at work last year was 220. That is four families a week blighted by a sudden death. Most of those deaths were utterly predictable and preventable. Work-related ill health and injury resulted in over 30 million days of absence from work. Statistically, half of these fatal injuries were in agriculture and construction—42 in agriculture and 71 in construction. I thought the noble Lord, Lord Christopher, made a good point in drawing attention to the language problems in construction, and how significant they are. However, anyone who knows the history of construction in this country knows that it has been riddled with bad employment practices and cowboys. Why can we not have proper, professional training apprenticeships in this country like they do in Germany or Sweden? For many years, the organisation of construction in this country has been a scandal, with results that we all see and the problems of house building. Looking at the overall statistics, there has been a steady decline in fatalities at work since the 1980s, but it seems to have got stuck since 2000. The latest Health and Safety Executive statistics show that there has been no clear trend in the number of fatal injuries since 2000:"““The target has therefore not been met””." Obviously, we would like the Minister’s comments on that, and on whether the decline from the 1980s to 2000 reflected a genuine improvement in safety standards, or just the changing industrial structure, with the mines, shipyards, steel and heavy manufacturing declining so fast as part of our economy. As well as fatalities at work, there were 1,900 deaths last year from mesothelioma and asbestos-related diseases. Also, why does the Minister think that the regional gaps in ill health are so large? In the north-east, the rate is 5,700 per 100,000; in Wales it is 5,400, compared to only 3,500 in London and 4,100 in the eastern region. Did the Minister see the deeply depressing report in the Guardian, I think, yesterday or the day before, suggesting that about 8 million adults at work have a reading age of no more than 11? The safety implications of that hardly bear thinking about. Farming has not really been discussed in this debate. I have two or three questions. One interesting statistic—which relates to what the noble Lord, Lord Berkley, was saying about Romanian construction—is that it is clear that the number of deaths in farming increases during the morning, reduces over lunchtime and then steadily rises again during the afternoon. I would be interested to know if he has any thoughts on why that is. The rate of fatal injuries in farming is much higher for the self-employed—presumably farmers—compared to employees. I would be interested to know why that is. Finally, the official statistics estimate that the cost to society of accidents in farming, forestry and horticulture last year was £343 million. There are two or three other aspects of health and safety at work on which I would welcome the Minister’s replies. There has been a good deal of work done by concerned people. I pick out a list of 12 suggestions for improving safety, which were published in an article in the New Law Journal in 2000 by Stephanie Trotter from the Centre of Corporate Accountability. She suggested, for example, that all companies should have to register the name of their insurer with Companies House. That would be a useful contribution to corporate transparency and accountability. Has it been considered and, if so, why has it not been implemented? On corporate responsibility, I strongly support the suggestion that all directors and senior managers should have a mandatory duty to take reasonable care of employees and members of the public likely to be affected by the work of the company. Decent directors do this already, and such a duty would only affect the small number of directors who do not really care about the health and safety of their workers or consumers. Workers in the gas and emergency services are at risk of gas and carbon monoxide poisoning, as they have no equipment to test for carbon monoxide. People are told to turn off their appliances and open the windows, but not everyone does that. Indeed, people can get confused—and people poisoned in that way can be pretty confused anyway. Five people have died of accidental carbon monoxide poisoning in the past week. This a pressing problem that will not go away. What is the response of the Minister and the Health and Safety Commission? My noble friend Lady Neuberger referred to a speech by the Prime Minister in 2005. Some of it may have been good, but one section was most unimpressive. I have already had to investigate it, because there was a throwaway line suggesting that it was not important to regulate the selling of pensions—that has had to be effectively withdrawn. The section on health and safety which concerned me, however, was when he said:"““Something is seriously awry when . . . health and safety rules across a range of areas is taken to extremes””." Which areas did he have in mind? That is a serious statement from a Prime Minister about an agency of his own Government. Does the Minister agree with the Prime Minister? If so, can he give examples? If not, what representations has the DWP made to Number 10 to stop this sort of casual comment on the work of the HSE?