We have had a lively debate, featuring contributions from my hon. Friend the Member for Rochford and Southend East (James Duddridge), and the hon. Members for Chesterfield (Toby Perkins), for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), for Derby North (Chris Williamson), for Leyton and Wanstead (John Cryer), for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins) and for North Ayrshire and Arran (Katy Clark).
I will begin with the two points made by the hon. Member for Chesterfield on Northern Ireland provision—new clause 2. The meaning of “a workplace” does include a vehicle or a motorcycle. I believe I have answered his point on a “blanket provision”. His other point was on article 13A of the 1990 order, which he described as section 12. The point is that the measure relates to the protection of Sikhs from racial discrimination in connection with the requirements to wear safety helmets. Subsections (9) to (11) of new clause 2 amend article 13A so that any person who attempts to impose a requirement on a turban-wearing Sikh to wear a safety helmet at a workplace—rather than just on a construction site—contrary to article 13 of the 1990 order, would be discriminating against the Sikh individual under the Race Relations (Northern Ireland) Order 1997. Avoiding that liability would not be considered a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim.
On health and safety law, it is worth starting by making the point that the Bill saves £300 million and is designed to lift burdens from business. I thought the Professor Löfstedt process was belittled somewhat by the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran, but there is no question but that he is highly regarded in the
field. The process was done in an academic way, involving industry representatives. At the end of it, he made the point that there is a case for following a similar approach to other countries and exempting from health and safety law those self-employed people—those who are not employees—whose workplace activities pose no potential risk or harm to others. The debate has been conducted by some hon. Members as though the Government want to put people in danger, but all the dangerous activities will be exempt. We are trying to get off the backs of people who want to make jobs; those who want to go out and be self-employed and employ others.
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I sometimes wonder about the Labour party. Does the party want there to be work? The Government are creating jobs at a very fast rate indeed: 1.4 million jobs in the private sector since 2010, despite all the prognostications that the opposite would happen. Some 70% of those jobs are full-time and they are transforming the country. That is partly to do with supporting entrepreneurship, lifting burdens from business, reducing taxes and making it easier to get out there and do these things. Surely that is in the interests of our country. The Labour Government’s record is one of rapid decline in world competitiveness from ninth to 22nd. When we think of the mess that the country was in in 2010 after their foolish stewardship of the country’s finances—their long-term Prime Minister, Tony Blair has said that after 2005 they got it wrong—we really have to ask whether we should take lectures from such a party on a deregulation measure.