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Mr. Ernie Ross : Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Buchanan-Smith : There have already been many interventions, and I should like to get on with the debate.
I should not like to let the opportunity pass without recording my sympathy, and I believe that of the whole House, for those who were involved in the Piper Alpha accident. I visited all the families in my constituency who were affected by it, so no one is more conscious than I am of what the tragedy meant in human terms.
I add my praise for those who were involved in the rescue. I pay tribute to the crew of the Silver Pit, regardless of the deficiencies in its vessel that were identified. I am sure that I express the view of the whole House when I say that I recognise the gallantry of those who were involved, which was recognised in the recent honours list, and the involvement of those on the shore. Those who have been recognised represent only a tiny fraction of the number who showed gallantry and total disregard for their personal safety in the operation that followed this tragic incident.
Once the moments of emotion and publicity of accidents such as Piper Alpha and the Chinook accident, in which families in my constituency were involved, have passed, there is an understandable feeling among the families of the victims that they have been forgotten. The Piper Alpha support group in Aberdeen was outstanding in supporting the families of the victims. Its work has become an example for others and was copied in the Lockerbie air disaster. The Rev. Andrew Wylie, industrial chaplain to the North sea installations, made a tremendous contribution during and after the accident. The services that he conducted and his continuing commitment to the interests of offshore workers are an example to everyone. I pay tribute to Lord Cullen not only for the way in which he conducted the inquiry but for the lucidity of the
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report and its findings. The report will go down in the annals of public inquiries as one of the best conducted and presented. I have heard no criticism of it, and I am sure that the House will join me in paying tribute to him.Everyone shares the objective of ensuring safety onshore and offshore. There will be times, alas, when deficiencies arise, but the Government, the industry, offshore workers and the unions have a common interest in ensuring that safety is paramount. We must always ensure that that interest is shared. We must make the North sea a safer place in which to live and work. To that extent, I welcome my right hon. Friend's immediate acceptance of all the recommendations. There is no question but that the Cullen report revealed deficiencies, but I suggest that they related more to the safety structure rather than to those in the Department of Energy who had the daily task of carrying out safety functions. The Burgoyne committee was set up to examine and to make recommendations on safety. The fact that 69 of its 70 recommendations were adopted shows that, on the basis of the best knowledge and experience available at the beginning of the 1980s, the Government set up what was thought to be the correct structure to ensure safety in the North sea. Perhaps insufficient attention was paid to the fact that safety is a continuing consideration. With the benefit of hindsight and the Cullen recommendations, perhaps steps should have been taken in the mid-1980s--I accept responsibility for this as much as anyone else--to see whether the Burgoyne recommendations were working properly. That is a fair criticism.
Mr. Ernie Ross : Does the right hon. Gentleman believe that there is insufficient distance between the regulatory body and the body that was responsible for safety? Those who carried out the investigations into safety were subject to the same pressures as those in the Department to achieve the maximum extraction and finance, which the Treasury wanted to use for a range of matters. The oil companies themselves wanted to exploit the extraction rate. We argue that the control of the examination of safety should be within another Department.
Mr. Buchanan-Smith : I disagree totally with the hon. Member. He is wrong. I shall deal now with objectivity, but I remind the hon. Gentleman that the Burgoyne committee--with a minority report, which I acknowledge, from only two members--recommended that responsibility for safety should rest with the Department of Energy. Therefore, the Government acted on a clear recommendation. At a meeting in the House a few months ago, Dr. Burgoyne said that he did not move subsequently from the original recommendations. The hon. Gentleman should recognise that basic but important historical fact. There are reasons now for a change, which I shall deal with, but that was the basis of the best recommendation and the best advice available at that time.
Mr. John Greenway (Ryedale) : Is not the real issue the fact that the Government have twice been faced with majority
recommendations--first by Burgoyne and then by Lord Cullen--and that on both occasions they have accepted the recommendations?
Mr. Buchanan-Smith : That is significant. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention.
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I might point out that, in the Department of Energy, I worked with staff in the inspectorate who dealt with safety. I want to make it clear that I have rarely worked with a body who, as individuals, showed greater integrity or higher objectivity. When it came to the crunch, and prosecution was under consideration, I never found any of them with any fear of pursuing prosecution if they felt that it was necessary. It would be unfair if criticism were directed at any of those individuals.I should like to comment on the main thrust of the report. The most important point identified by the report is the importance of human motivation and human involvement in safety. If Lord Cullen has done one service beyond any other, it is to establish that fact, which many people acknowledged and to which many people paid lip service before, but which has never been enunciated so clearly or with so much authority as it was by Lord Cullen.
We can have the best equipment, the highest technology and the safest in terms of hardware and everything else, as many of our platforms had, yet the installation is only as safe as the weakest operator or the weakest individual on it. That will always remain the case. We can never legislate totally for human or individual failure.
The report recommends, and my right hon. Friend is implementing, the safety case approach of Lord Cullen. That is the right approach. Working through a safety management system should ensure that safety becomes a philosophy and a major motivation of every individual, not just from the offshore installation manager right down to the most junior operative on the platform, but also right up to the senior management of the oil company.
Given the safety case approach that Lord Cullen advocates, we must make certain that it is comprehensive and involves everyone. When I say "everyone", I mean not only those employed by the oil company but also contractors, subcontractors and their staff who work on an installation. I am glad that many offshore operators have already adopted much greater vetting of contractors. With new arrangements for longer contracts, the operator is taking much more responsibility for contractors and the conditions of work of contractors' staff, rather than being concerned just with oil company staff.
I regret that on some installations there has been too much of the culture of "them and us"--the oil company staff on the one hand and the contractors' staff on the other. Once people are offshore, no matter who their ultimate employer is, they must belong to one team, with the same responsibilities. Let us never forget that the buck stops with the operator. Therefore, it is on the operator that responsibility must be placed to make sure that every individual is involved. If contractors or subcontractors are not prepared to comply with that, I hope that operators will get rid of their services and ensure that there is co-operation.
The safety case approach must not be a once-and-for-all new idea. It must be continuing, and it must develop as experience develops in future.
I wish to make two other points of substance.
Mr. Mullin rose --
Mr. Buchanan-Smith : I would rather not give way, because many hon. Members wish to speak, and I have spoken for long enough. We do not want to underestimate the importance of the establishment on installations of safety committees. The
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possible role of unions in safety committees is a central point in the debate. There may be a role for unions, but I am not convinced that it has to be prescribed in legislation.Coming back to the main thrust of Cullen, I do not believe that the involvement of unions would mean that everyone on a platform would be involved. There will always be on platforms individuals who are not members of unions. The current system of the election of safety committees, which thankfully has been developed since Cullen, gives the opportunity to anyone, whatever his interest, to become involved in the safety of the installation.
Victimisation is a question that we cannot ignore. Although I have heard many allegations, I have seen very little substantiation of them. There has to be a system, such as was set up following Cullen, whereby individuals can make complaints anonymously, through a telephone number or whatever, so that the authorities have the opportunity to investigate whether there is substance behind a complaint. Victimisation may be overdone, but I do not think that it can be ignored.
Transfer of responsibility for safety to the Health and Safety Executive has been raised. Here I come back to the point made by the hon. Member for Dundee, West (Mr. Ross). Experience post-Cullen shows that it is important that whoever is responsible for offshore safety is objective--having worked with the staff of the safety inspectorate within the Department of Energy I know that they were objective--but Cullen underlined the need for them to be seen to be objective as well. That is important for credibility. That is one thing which Cullen brought out, and I endorse his recommendation on it. The new offshore safety division will be only as effective as the quality of its staff and the skills that they have. I say to my right hon. Friend, and through him to the Health and Safety Executive, that they must be people with technical skills equal to those of the inspectorate staff who have to deal with safety in the oil companies. They must be able to deal on equal terms with the oil companies. To use the analogy of the petroleum engineering division of the Department of Energy, its strength, recognised by oil companies around the world, is that its staff match the quality of staff in the oil companies. We must ensure that in the inspectorate there is the same matching of staff both in quality and in technical qualifications. That will mean paying salaries equivalent to those in the oil companies. There must be no economies in acquiring staff of the right quality and number.
The offshore safety division should be situated in Aberdeen because the interplay between those involved in the regulation of the industry and those who are working at its sharp end is important if those in the inspectorate are to know and understand what is happening in the industry. I am not pleading for one particular area of Britain against another ; I am seeking to make the inspectorate more effective than it might otherwise be. I beg that that be given the most serious consideration possible.
I am glad to have been able to contribute to the debate. Again I emphasise that I hope that we have a continuing interest in offshore safety. Even one accident offshore is one too many. If it is humanly possible, it must be our objective to eliminate such accidents altogether.
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5.51 pmMr. Ken Eastham (Manchester, Blackley) : I am most grateful for being called to speak today. This is one of the most serious debates that there has been in the House for many a long year.
It is appropriate for me to declare my interest as a member of the Amalgamated Engineering Union and honorary secretary of the AEU parliamentary group, although I receive no funding or considerations. Nevertheless, I have an interest in the engineering industry and a feeling for the people who perished on the night of the terrible disaster.
First, I want to pay tribute to Lord Cullen. He has produced in a highly professional way two of the most detailed volumes that I have ever seen. I think that all hon. Members will agree that it was well worth waiting the 18 months that it took to prepare them. I also want to pay tribute to the television companies. They made a valuable contribution in bringing home to the general public the danger faced by our engineers and the contribution that they make on offshore oil rigs. I am sure that many hon. Members saw the documentary that was made about the disaster, which showed the horrendous conditions that existed and the horrendous mistakes that were made on that night, from which all the consequential suffering ensued.
The Piper Alpha disaster occurred in July 1988. Only the other day I found myself comparing the 167 fatalities which resulted from that disaster, probably within one hour, with the number of British fatalities in the Gulf war. During the Gulf war, people have been glued to their television sets, watching events day by day and worrying about our casualties, but, thankfully, British fatalities, after all those weeks, were only one quarter of those that resulted from the Piper Alpha disaster.
It is recognised that Piper Alpha was the biggest offshore oil disaster that the world has ever known. It left many dead. It also left survivors, some of whom are still under medication. They will be haunted by the disaster for the rest of their days. The disaster also left widows and orphans, and no financial compensation will replace the loss of their husbands and fathers.
The report is a complete catalogue of sloppy and indifferent management, even wilful neglect bordering on sheer wickedness. People who read the report of this debate will not necessarily appreciate the contents of that document. The right hon. Member for Kincardine and Deeside (Mr. Buchanan- Smith) said that everyone was doing his best and that there were some of the best conditions and the best safety possible. I contend that that was not the case. There is no doubt in my mind that the evidence shows that that is not the case, and that view is confirmed by the Cullen report.
For the sake of the record, therefore, it is important that I, as an engineer, extract one or two references from the report rather than simply say that we have the document, that nothing was wrong, that nothing could be done and that it was a pure accident. Many of us do not feel that it was a pure accident at all. It was partly due to wilful neglect.
Page after page of the report refers to the permit to work system. The system being used--or not used--regarding the issuing of permits when there was a change of shift from one group of engineers to another became the big issue.
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It is important to note that most of the dead--79 out of a total of 167--died in the accommodation as a result of being overcome by smoke. The death toll could have been lessened had safety training been more effective. The report says that, as those men innocently waited in the accommodation for their instructions, their chances of survival were diminished and they perished.Chapter 6, page 121, says that the contractor responsible for carrying out the maintenance on the valve had not received training in the permit to work system from his own company. Cullen finds that the failure of the permit to work system led directly to the accident, particularly in the light of the fact that a fatality had already resulted from a breakdown of that system in 1987.
In chapter 7, Lord Cullen states :
"The strong impression with which I was left after hearing the evidence as to the response of Claymore and Tartan was that the type of emergency with which the senior personnel of each platform was confronted was something for which they had not been prepared." He then talked about poor Occidental management.
Chapter 11 again refers to the permit to work system and shift takeovers. On pages 194 and 195, Lord Cullen concludes that there was no adequate training procedure for the permit to work system, that much reliance was placed on ad hoc methods and/or "on the job" training and that the permit to work system was not adequately monitored by the rig's safety department. The deficiencies in the permit to work system are constantly mentioned.
Page 196 of the report states that the system of shift handovers was a major factor in the disaster, and mentions critical comments by a Mr. Clark, who was a survivor of the disaster, and criticised the operation of the permit to work system in a meeting with senior Occidental management in early 1988. No action was taken. Page 197 of the report mentions the death of Mr. Sutherland, in 1987. He was a rigger who died after falling from a canopy above a pump while carrying out maintenance. Occidental was prosecuted under the Health and Safety at Work, etc. Act 1974 for failing to ensure that persons in its employ were not exposed to unnecessary risks. Occidental pleaded guilty and was fined £400. The crucial factors in that incident were shortcomings in the permit to work system. The report states :
"The complaint to which Occidental pleaded guilty also specified inadequate communication of information from the ... day-shift to the night-shift'."
So, once again, the permit to work system is mentioned.
Dr. Michael Clark : I agree with the hon. Member about the permit to work regulations. As a practical engineer who has worked in plant and on shift, does he agree that if a company cannot get its permit to work handovers working satisfactorily, and if it cannot get shift handovers organised, it is right at the bottom of the safety league?
Mr. Eastham : I certainly do. I am trying to demonstrate that this was not a one-off mistake. There was case after case of sloppy management. The company was not administering or managing the rigs as they should be operated, even though the permit to work procedure was laid down to establish that a certain valve was safe, or had been disconnected, so that at the beginning of his 12-hour shift the next operator knew what was going on. I am trying to show the importance of the Cullen report and to shoot down any idea that everything was good and that
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the report says that the accident was an act of God. It was not an act of God--it was management neglect, and as Members of Parliament we must do something about it.I do not want to bore the House, and I apologise for going on, but it is important to deal with the parts of the report which examine emergencies, fatalities and the seriousness of the situation. Chapter 13 deals with training for emergencies. Page 214 mentions "understanding on the part of all personnel as to how to react in the event of an emergency."
The significance of that is that it appeared that people who died in the rig's accommodation were waiting to be rescued by helicopter, unaware that smoke from the fire made such a rescue impossible. Cullen believes that, if more of them had tried to make their way out of the rig, more could have survived--that assumes that they knew how to escape.
Chapter 14 concerns Occidental's management of safety and is so critical of the company that it should be re-titled Occidental's "mismanagement" of safety. I am giving chapter and verse because this is important and I do not want hon. Members to think that it is all in my imagination.
Page 227 of the report states that Occidental commissioned a report on the risk of riser ruptures and the effects that they might have on rigs. Mr. Saldana prepared a report which states that ruptures represented a more serious hazard than Occidental had thought. Occidental's senior management responded by questioning Mr. Saldana's qualifications and experience. That provokes the question, why was he commissioned to write the report in the first place if the management intended to ignore it because it did not like some of his conclusions? That is a complete contradiction. Occidental nominated him to undertake the study.
On page 235, the report mentions that a large maintenance programme was being carried out on Piper Alpha at the time of the disaster and yet oil production continued at the maximum. Lord Cullen describes that as "puzzling". Some people might call it reckless, and I might even call it sheer greed--the company could not even turn the taps down during a major maintenance operation to ensure that less fuel was flowing. The company was extracting the maximum amount of fuel, even though a vital valve was being worked on when the horrendous accident happened.
On page 251, the report says that there was a shortfall in the number of safety inspectors in the North sea. Two out of five inspectors' jobs had remained unfilled for two years before the disaster. The report says that safety inspectors were, and are, inadequately trained and that persistent undermanning has affected the frequency and the depth of inspections.
Chapter 20 refers to evacuation, escape and rescue, and says that it is a statutory requirement for every rig to have a standby vessel. My hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) described the type and quality of standby vessels, so I shall not bore hon. Members with the details, but it is all there, chapter and verse, in the report.
Lord Cullen considers union involvement in the offshore oil industry in chapter 21. Although he recognises that industrial relations are outside his remit, he makes a number of statements which could be used to show the benefits for safety of a well organised union structure.
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The Director-General of the Health and Safety Executive said that in the onshore industry union-appointed"safety representatives could play a valuable part in the promotion of safety and in relation to inspections".
The United Kingdom Offshore Operators Association, however resisted the appointment of similar personnel offshore on the ground that there were very few installations with recognised trade unions. That prompts a reasonable question--why were those unions not recognised? The remains of Piper Alpha are still at the bottom of the North sea, despite protests by environmentalists, the Royal Navy and local fishermen. Leaving those remains rotting in the sea may even violate the 1958 Geneva convention.
Anyone who considers the tone of the Cullen report to be less than scathing must not have read the same document as me. It is critical from start to finish, and tonight no Minister will be able to avoid making a commitment about the Government's future conduct. The offshore oilfields have experienced major difficulties for some time. The Amalgamated Engineering Union--my union, and a very responsible one--has used its best endeavours to be helpful and co-operative. In the months following the disaster I was contacted by the engineers' executive council, which seemed alarmed about the indifference of the employers. As secretary of the AEU parliamentary group, I wrote to the Secretary of State for Energy ; he was courteous and co-operative, and I was grateful for that. We had two meetings. The Secretary of State invited three members of the executive to join us at the first meeting, and two attended the second. I took the minutes. The Secretary of State said that he had accepted all the recommendations in the report, and that good progress was being made. He also mentioned the transfer of responsibilities to the Health and Safety Executive, and told us that Mr. A. Barrell had been appointed head of that organisation. One of the executive councillors, Mr. James Airlie, said that he recognised the difficulties relating to, for instance, resources and training. He also inquired about visits to installations, and about the location of the HSE in Aberdeen and Morecambe. The question of health and safety committees on individual sites was raised, as were the issues of victimisation and short- term contracts. As we explained to the Secretary of State, the position was ludicrous : many engineers were on two-week contracts, and any engineer who complained about matters of safety could be sure that his contract would not be renewed.
Mr. James Lamond (Oldham, Central and Royton) : My hon. Friend gained day-to-day experience of the trade union movement before he came to the House. Does he agree that such attitudes on the part of these firms were greatly encouraged by legislation enacted not only in the past 11 years, but by the 1970-74 Government, who seemed to regard the union movement as a group of extremists determined to bring down British industry if they could? The Government entirely ignored the daily bread-and-butter work done by the unions every week of the year, which is of such value not only to union members but to all the workers in the oilfields and elsewhere --and, indeed, to the country as a whole.
Mr. Eastham : I entirely agree. We observe the Government's anti- union attitude day in, day out. They
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seem to hate trade unionists, and not even to consider them British. That attitude changes only in times of emergency. When there is a war and they want engineers to work in munitions, it is all shoulders to the wheel, and trade unionists suddenly become good workers-- people with whom the Government can negotiate and do business.At the meeting, the Secretary of State made three points. First, he assured us that there would be no lack of resources. Secondly, on personnel, he said that a practical regime would be introduced, and that its organisation would be left to the HSE. Thirdly, he accepted Lord Cullen's recommendations about safety representation. Mr. Tom MacLean, a member of the executive, mentioned inspector understaffing and the quality of staff. The Secretary of State said that he had already improved pay and that he "was not hanging about", which pleased us greatly.
I mentioned the excessive hours worked by the men on the rigs, and the consequent risks to safety and efficiency. The Secretary of State said that he too considered that important. When he made his first statement about the disaster, I told him that engineers on the North sea oil rigs were working far more hours per year than those in the Norwegian fields. That still requires earnest consideration. Later, the Secretary of State wrote to me privately, saying that directives were being issued containing work guidelines.
We appreciated what seemed to be co-operation from the Secretary of State, and felt that the exercise had been useful. Since then, I have received some encouraging letters, but I hope that we shall soon get down to practicalities.
I made some other approaches, again with the help of the executive of the AEU. I received a letter that concerned me greatly. It did not make good reading. The executive referred to continuing anxieties long after the Piper Alpha disaster.
In February 1990, I received a letter from Mr. Tom MacLean, who has responsibility for the construction industry in the AEU, in which he drew attention to correspondence relating to the Montrose platform and asked me to note an enclosed copy of a fax dated 26 February 1990 from the Offshore Industry Liaison Committee. It said that there were deficiencies in Amoco's working practices which were a source of great concern and that the committee called on the right hon. Member for City of Chester (Mr. Morrison), who was then the Minister with responsibility for oil installations, immediately to shut down the Montrose platform until Amoco's fitness to manage had been reassessed. It also argued that new fireproof accommodation should be installed.
That was picked up by the newspapers. On 25 February 1990, there was a report in Observer Scotland under the headline
"Rig gas leak a whisper away' from second Piper".
I thought that I ought to approach the United Kingdom Offshore Operators Association to see whether we could get together to talk about these serious matters. On 7 March 1990 I wrote to Dr. Hughes and said :
"we are now wondering whether it would be possible to convene a meeting at your offices to discuss further some of the issues which are seriously concerning our members. We
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have also exchanged correspondence with our Executive Council who obviously are most interested in the pursuit of some better arrangements. Ideally, from our point of view, I should like to suggest a deputation of 3 AEU MPs plus 3 Executive Council members with a special interest in the subject."Although some organisations profess that they want to co-operate, the message that came back to me from UKOOA was that it would meet the three AEU Members of Parliament but it refused point blank to meet the three AEU executive council members.
Despite UKOOA's refusal, the three AEU Members of Parliament thought that it would be wise to meet UKOOA at its offices. The three hon. Members were my right hon. Friend the Member for Salford, East (Mr. Orme), my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Hughes) and me. No trade union officials were allowed to be present for the discussion. We were received courteously. Dr. Harold Hughes is the chairman. Mr. Christopher Ryan, a director, said that there are 36 companies in the industry, all of which are members of UKOOA. The companies are members of an association ; I wonder whether the engineers on the oil rigs would have been regarded as more acceptable if they had been members of an association rather than a trade union. UKOOA might then have been prepared to meet them. An association does just the same work as a trade union. We were told that there are 160 platforms and that the total investment amounts to £166 billion. That is a lot of money. We recognise how important the industry is to the United Kingdom.
We gave notice to Dr. Hughes that the engineering group intended to raise the profile of this very serious problem. I told Dr. Hughes--it is quoted in the Glasgow Herald of 28 February 1990, long after the Piper Alpha incident--that certain rigs were working with faulty electrics and that a survey had revealed that 95 per cent. of the explosive-proof equipment in the Brent field had faults. The article also referred to the fact that workers were convinced that faults had shut down Cormorant Alpha and Brent Charlie and that similar electrical faults were to be found on at least three other Shell installations.
The issue rumbled on in the House of Commons for a long time after that. One of my hon. Friends tabled an early-day motion on North sea safety and trade union recognition, after which I received a letter from UKOOA. I was told that all workers offshore had the right to elect their own safety representatives and that there were safety committees on every platform. The letter also pointed out that a recent study by the Institute of Offshore Engineering, an independent body, had reported similar accident rates in both Norway and the United Kingdom. The implication was that the number of fatalities and accidents was just as great in Norway as in the United Kingdom. According to the information that we have received, that is nowhere near the truth. The letter said that £750 million was being invested to redress some of the problems. In an important paragraph, UKOOA said :
"As far as trade union recognition is concerned, all workers have equal rights offshore--including the right to join a trade union and join safety committees. Recognition is a matter between workers and their employers, the contractors. You may be interested to know that there is an obligation under every licence for the operator to provide facilities for trade union officers to go offshore for the purposes of recruitment."
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That is a bit rich when we know what happens if full-time trade union officers attempt to get to the rigs, even to speak to the workers.When I replied to Mr. Ryan's letter I referred him to an article in The Scotsman dated 26 October under the heading
"North sea men face worst death risk in the world."
An independent team of analysts--Smith Rea Energy--calculate that the average cost to United Kingdom-based companies in lost production and compensation amounts to £180 million a year. That was before the Piper Alpha disaster, which raised the 1988 total to £1.2 million. Surely there must be something wrong with the rigs if so much money is lost, if there are so many fatalities and injuries, if so many rigs are closed down and if so much energy is lost. I base my argument not on my assumptions or calculations but on those of so-called experts.
The House will appreciate that my correspondence with UKOOA has been going on for some time. In November 1990, I received a letter saying :
"Since Lord Cullen reported, all engaged in the offshore industry have adopted a very positive approach to the recommendations made and there is a common desire to implement the report in the interest of North Sea safety Therefore UKOOA would be pleased to host a further meeting with you and your AEU colleagues."
That was a breakthrough ; it was the first time that UKOOA had said that it was prepared to meet members of the executive as well as AEU-sponsored Members of Parliament. The letter concluded : "I will telephone you upon your receipt of this letter." UKOOA never telephoned me ; I am still waiting for the call. A letter from the AEU executive illustrates the brutality of what was happening in the oilfield. [Laughter]. I know that this seems a bit of a joke to those who do not work in the oilfields, who simply do not understand. Perhaps if they got themselves a boiler suit, rolled up their sleeves and did six months' work in the North sea, they would appreciate how much engineers contribute to oil companies' wealth.
The letter from the executive, dated3 December 1990, illustrates the brutal hire-and-fire policy in operation in the North sea. One can hardly say that3 December 1990 is a long time ago and that matters have improved. The letter refers to dismissals following the dispute about safety on oil rigs. It gives a breakdown of dismissals following the stoppages. Apparently 534 Offshore Construction Contractors employees were dismissed. There was no mutuality and there were no negotiations. It seems that the companies have returned to their old ways--the practices that we have tried so hard to leave behind us. They merely say, "There is no job for you. Too bad, you're off." To this day, there is no consideration and no understanding. In January, I received another letter from UKOOA, in which Mr. Ryan wrote :
"My purpose in writing is to invite you and your colleagues to meet us when we could brief you on UKOOA's reaction to the current recommendations and discuss other matters of mutual interest. You may recall that we were of a mind to suggest a meeting with appropriate AEU national officials".
UKOOA was "of a mind" to do that and said that it would call me. The last sentence of the letter reads :
"I will get in touch with you on your receipt of this letter." Once again, I never received the call. Perhaps UKOOA keeps that line on its computer-- "We will get in touch with
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you after you have received this letter." I want to make it public, therefore, that the AEU Members of Parliament and the union's executive council would very much appreciate a meeting. It is not difficult to get in touch with me. Everyone else seems to be able to get in touch with me and I can always be left a message. If I receive that call, I shall be only too pleased to meet UKOOA'srepresentatives.
Allegations of blacklisting have sometimes been denied. Hon. Members may be aware that the Select Committee on Employment undertook an inquiry into recruitment practices. We dealt with the employment of the disabled and minority groups and decided to have a look at the Economic League and at blacklisting. I have a letter here--[ Hon. Members :-- "Oh no."] This is important. I am trying to illustrate that this is fact ; it is not in my mind. The Employment Select Committee received a letter from one of the unions about blacklisting of anyone who dares to complain about safety on the oil rigs.
Those who complain get worked off. The Select Committee was sent a transcript of some of the communications that such people had received. The unions are getting a bit more skilled at recording these things and, in this case, they also recorded telephone conversations. The transcript proves that on North sea oil rigs, blacklisting continues apace.
I know that people say that blacklisting does not exist but we know that it does. Paragraph 30, on page 392 of the Cullen report, says : "Safety representatives should be protected against victimisation by a provision similar to the Employment Protection (Consolidation) Act 1978".
Even Lord Cullen, who said that he did not propose to become involved in discussions of blacklisting or the trade unions, recognises that it is going on and thinks that the workers should have some protection.
I refuse to believe that nobody is to blame for the disaster. The Cullen report certainly concluded that people were to blame. We need better management. North sea oil workers are entitled to full trade union rights. We want less secrecy regarding safety problems and adequate health and safety resources. Above all, we ask for increased co-operation, despite Conservative Members' laughing and tittering about the livelihoods and working conditions of those who work on the rigs.
There is nothing irresponsible about our desire for more co-operation. We are trade unionists and we are far more responsible than some of the hooligans on the Conservative Benches when it comes to dealing with the serious matter of the loss of hundreds of lives. None of those on the Conservative Benches will die on the oil rigs because none of them wear boiler suits and none of them have ever taken such jobs. It is the workers who do that, and that is why we want more co-operation in future. Trade unionists are entitled to work in dignity, and the whole House should be determined not to allow a repeat of Piper Alpha.
This afternoon I was passed information by a colleague who has a relative in a senior position in the oilfields from which I discovered that compensation has still not been paid to all the survivors of the disaster, which occurred in July 1988. We are now in March 1991. I was also horrified to learn that it is believed that the new replacement platform is of the same design as the original Piper Alpha platform, yet one of the main criticisms concerned the type
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of accommodation on the platform. If that is the case, it is a complete disgrace and the Minister should do something about it. There is no doubt that Occidental has a dreadful record. It is interesting that, although some of the other oil companies, such as Esso, have already held one-day conferences on safety, Occidental has still to hold its first safety conference.I could talk about many things. I could speak for about two hours on some of the deficiencies and scandals in the North sea oilfields. It is time that we put a stop to all that.
6.40 pm
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