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extremely critical of oil companies, especially in the wake of Piper Alpha and the evidence from offshore, and of the way in which safety functions have been examined, we must remember that some things have been done properly and well. It appeared that they were done properly and adequately before Piper Alpha.I went to one platform. We were told and shown that the fire control systems which operated the deluge system were situated in a different module from where the deluge system was located, so if a fire took place and it was recognised that there might be an explosion, the control system for the deluge could be operated from another module and would not be affected immediately. The control was separate from the equipment, so it should have been possible to operate the equipment. The irony is that in some cases such matters have been examined carefully. Nevertheless, the most pessimistic approach has to be brought into play in the necessary reassessment. It is often argued that there is little difference now between the oil companies, the Government and the Opposition about the need to ensure that safety is paramount.
The oil companies got as big a shock as anyone as a result of the incident. All the oil company people to whom I have spoken since Piper Alpha have said, in effect, "We thought our systems were safe and that we had done everything we possibly could." When they examined the systems on Piper Alpha and other platforms, they said, "In the light of Piper Alpha, we have suddenly realised how far we have to go." That was an honest admission and those who made it should be given credit for being honest. Clearly, Piper Alpha has had an enormous impact on people's perception.
We must make sure that the overall safety assessments and provisions and the way in which they operate and are monitored, supervised and controlled are satisfactory. For some years, great dissatisfaction has been expressed in question and answer sessions across the Floor of the House about the Department of Energy having both the production responsibility and the safety remit. Concern has often been expressed lest conflicts of interest should arise between the needs of production and the need for safety. That theme--the possible conflict of interest of operators in terms of production and safety--has existed throughout, the fear being that production needs will override safety needs.
I do not believe that anyone in industry says, "We don't care if this is dangerous. You must do it because production needs come first." Nobody in industry has ever said that to me, but in many ways the position is more sinister. The attitude among those concerned builds up to their believing, "We must get this production out and we can't afford to shut down." I fear that such a sentiment can impinge on the thoughts of all involved in production. I repeat that we must be sure that there is no conflict of interest between production and safety.
Lord Cullen recommended--I concede at once that the Government have accepted the recommendation--that the Health and Safety Executive should now assume direct responsibility for offshore safety. It is sometimes forgotten that the Department of Energy undertook the safety remit as an agency acting for the HSE in the first instance. In any
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event, it is now universally accepted that the transfer should take place, and the Secretary of State said that he would make it happen. I am pleased to say that there is unanimity on that, and the matter was put to Lord Cullen by the trade unions and by the United Kingdom Offshore Operators Association. That having been agreed, we are now only awaiting the starting date. On that, the Minister made out the best case he could. He said that he could not say precisely when the new arrangement would start but that it would be fairly soon. A number of questions remain unanswered. We are familiar with the shortage of inspectors. During the remit of the Department of Energy, there were problems in that respect. The shortage must not be allowed to persist. It is often said that a real shortage of expertise will exist, and the question, "From where will the experts come?" is frequently asked. My hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) said that money was not the only problem. That may be so, but it is a key to the answer.While I would like to see the job done entirely by the Health and Safety Executive, and an increase in the number of expert personnel so that eventually we have a sufficient body of expertise, it may be necessary for expertise to be bought in in the first instance, perhaps on a consultancy basis. If experts are available in, say, the United States or Norway, we should bring them in to help. If they cannot be employed directly by the HSE, we should hire experts and pay the price, for no excuse must be allowed to delay the essential work that has to be done.
The Secretary of State, previously and in his remarks today, said that the demands of safety are so imperative that a shortage of money should not inhibit safety supervision, provision and operation. The right hon. Gentleman now needs to be forthright about that. I understood him to say that broad agreement had been reached. I cannot accept that statement in its entirety. I am not satisfied with the reaching of broad agreements on an issue such as this. I want to be told clearly and without equivocation the budget that the Health and Safety Executive requested of the Treasury and the amount that the Treasury agreed to provide for the HSE. There may have been broad agreement, but in terms of civil servants talking to each other and Treasury Ministers talking to departmental Ministers, reaching broad agreement could mean that the Treasury has screwed down the amount of money that will be made available, and such a situation would be wholly wrong.
The Minister should be open with us on this issue, although I accept that it might be difficult for him to do that. Promises are no substitute in this instance for hard cash. We must be sure that the amount of money sought by the HSE has been, and will be, made available. Indeed, we must also be sure that as the HSE carries out the work in the months and years ahead, more money will be made available if it is needed. There must be no equivocation about that. As some of my hon. Friends have said, we should be told where the new headquarters will be. Hon. Members will not be surprised to hear me say that logic suggests that they should be in Aberdeen. I understood the Minister to say that there would be a substantial presence in Aberdeen, but he could not say whether the headquarters would be established there. Any hon. Member might make a cheap debating point and say that I am expressing the
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parochialism of the Scots, in particular those in north-east Scotland. That is not the case. I am simply expressing the logic of the situation.It is sometimes argued--
Mr. Hughes : I think that my hon. Friend has anticipated me wrongly on this occasion. I do not think he intends to argue the point that I am about to make.
It is sometimes argued that modern technology has shortened the lines of communication to the extent that it is not necessary to have people nearby to do the job. There is some validity in that. Indeed, some hon. Members may regret the way in which modern technology has brought us into much closer contact with our constituents. They can get in touch with us too readily, some might say. As irony is never reflected in print, I hasten to add that that comment was made in jest--just in case anybody reads the Official Report of my comments.
There is no substitute for having the personnel and expertise we require close to hand so that there can be adequate communication with them. I say that because we need a stronger hands-on approach to safety in place of the hands-off approach of the past. We need people on the ground. The availability of headquarters staff would provide a permanent stimulus to safety. That is probably the best practical way to foster safety in the future.
Some may not accept my view that a more definite hands-on approach is necessary. Indeed, some may say that we have not had a hands-off approach in the past. I believe that we have. The oil companies have argued--I believe that they still argue--that the problem of safety in the North sea arises in part because of the detailed regulation. Perhaps they are not arguing that the problems arise because of detailed regulations. However, they certainly are arguing, as they argued before Lord Cullen, that the detailed regulations instil a negative philosophy and a negative psychology towards safety. I need not read into the record all the references to that in the Cullen report, but it is referred to in paragraphs 21.40 and 21.42. In the latter paragraph, Lord Cullen, following up the oil companies' idea that regulations lead to less safety rather than more, recalled the evidence of Mr. McKee :
"Regulations need to be less prescriptive and detailed, more objective and broader based. Over time as you layer more and more prescriptive types of regulations onto the overall regime it probably takes away from the overall objective of total safety."
I do not accept that. Nor do I accept the oil companies' implication that operators decide that, provided they have satisfied the regulations as a minimum, they need not do any more.
The oil companies identified that danger. They said that if companies simply followed the regulations, they might stop thinking about safety beyond what is written on paper. There may be a case for strongly attacking the oil companies for that, but I would restrain myself from doing so. I believe that that is an interesting admission about the psychology which may have developed.
I want to consider a counter-proposition from UKOOA--that the operators should accept responsibility for total safety with a minimum of detailed regulation. I have always accepted, and will always accept, that employers have a legal and moral duty to ensure the safe operation of their industries for the benefit of their
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employees, the company and, in the case of onshore installations, the safety of those who reside in the vicinity of dangerous operations.The responsibility is and always has been that of the companies involved. On the other hand, we should not conclude from that that the detailed regulations should be diluted. I hope that the Secretary of State or the Minister will assure us that detailed regulations will remain in force and that, as and when necessary, new regulations will be laid.
Regulations on safety and necessary procedures must be set out clearly. There can be no serious dispute about that. There must also be unanimity that safety depends on those who must implement the system. I accept what several hon. Members have said--that there is a joint responsibility. Managers, operators, owners and workers have a combined responsibility. None of us can escape that responsibility. Safety is a state of mind. We are all familiar with the syndrome in which there is a heightened interest in safety or security after a major incident, but that is followed by sad and serious lapses as the incident fades from memory. There is a cycle in which people suddenly become interested in safety after an accident, but that interest wanes as the memory fades.
I do not intend to be derogatory about those who work in industry when I say that they cannot maintain the fever pitch of interest in safety that follows a major incident. It is a natural function of human resilience that the capacity to overcome danger allows us to set those dangers aside ; otherwise, we would become too scared to do anything. My thesis is that we should encourage all organisations and harness all our energies towards safety.
The involvement of the trade union movement is of paramount importance. It is essential to improving general safety. The Government have maliciously cultivated an image of the trade union movement as short-sighted and concerned solely with immediate issues, such as wages and protecting its own power base. That is a wholly malevolent image which is ill deserved and a perversion of the truth.
Of course trade unions are interested in wages and conditions. They must have an interest in improving the standard of living of our members. When I say "our members", I should declare an interest as a member of the Amalgamated Engineering Union. I declare that interest not defensively, but as a matter of pride.
Trade unionists have always had a legitimate and abiding interest in safety at work. They have always run safety courses for shop stewards and other members, many of which are at local and national levels and sometimes even at international level. There has been a lamentable lack of understanding, perhaps even hostility, between the oil companies and the trade union movement. I cannot understand why that has happened.
Many of the oil companies that function in the North sea have onshore installations or onshore projects in which they coexist quite happily with trade union membership, where trade union membership is the norm, where there is trade union recognition and where there is much union-management co-operation. No one has been able to explain to me why a different view should be taken with regard to activity in the North sea. That is completely beyond my comprehension. However, I believe that attitudes may be changing. I am grateful to UKOOA for meeting my right hon. Friend the Member for Salford, East (Mr. Orme), my hon. Friend the
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Member for Manchester, Blackley (Mr. Eastham) and me and for the further invitation to meet us again with representatives of the AEU executive council. I hope that that meeting takes place soon and that, no matter what harsh words have been spoken here today, the co-operation and dialogue that has started over the past few months will not be set aside.I hope that our discussions will continue and that they will be fruitful and co-operative. I hope that those discussions will lead to proper trade union recognition. No one is saying that everyone must be a trade union member. We seek proper rights to be trade union members and proper recruitment rights and co-operation by the oil companies to allow recruitment in the North sea.
I do not blame people who have been offshore for a fortnight if they make a dive to get home as soon as they get off the helicopter and do not wait to speak to the trade union representative who wants to recruit them. It is ridiculous to claim that the opportunities to recruit offshore workers are the same as those to recruit onshore workers.
I hope that we will no longer hear stories about particular platforms on which the number of trade union members is growing, and where, if one or two of those members begin to show some militancy, they find that they are not required for two or three months or are split up on to different platforms where there are very few, if any, trade union members. I hope that the oil companies will allow opportunities for recruitment. It is in their interests as much as it is the interest of the offshore workers.
I am optimistic that there is a change of understanding and a belief that the trade unions have a place and must be recognised. However, having said that, I remain convinced that the Health and Safety at Work, etc. Act 1974 should be extended offshore. In paragraphs 21.84 and 21.85, Lord Cullen accepts the value and validity of trade union membership and representation providing a backup and a bolster for those who might be afraid of dismissal or afraid that they might not be taken seriously. He accepted the validity of the argument but qualified it by saying that most of the evidence came from the trade union movement ; but it could not come from anywhere else. I regret that he did not recommend that the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 should apply to offshore installations and that he did not deal with the issue of industrial relations. I ask the Government to put that piece of the safety jigsaw in place. It fits with the general thesis that safety is everyone's responsibility and with the legal requirement, which should be as clear as possible, to make safety an issue about which workers are not afraid to speak out.
The awful impact of Piper Alpha will be with us for ever. We are constantly reminded of it, as we were recently by the burning of Kuwaiti oil wells. Piper Alpha should not have happened and must never happen again. No opportunity should be left unexplored in the drive to achieve the highest safety standards. If the lessons of Piper Alpha are learnt and applied, life offshore will be safer for those who earn their living there.
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8.10 pmMr. Ernie Ross (Dundee, West) : I recall contributing to the debate on the Burgoyne report on 6 November 1980. I have quickly read the five or six-minute speech that I made. I hope to speak tonight for eight or 10 times as long.
The trade union to which I belong was heavily involved in the early 1980s in the offshore and onshore oil industry. It made recommendations which almost second-guessed the tragedy that was about to happen. My hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull, East (Mr. Prescott), who was concerned about transport matters, and I wanted to establish a charter for offshore workers in the North sea. Many of my constituents were employed on offshore installations. The Burgoyne committee was established by my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn) when he was Secretary of State for Energy. If the Conservative party had not won the 1979 election, many more of Burgoyne's recommendations would have been implemented. For instance, more attention might have been paid to recommendation 564.
Although I have much admiration for the right hon. Member for Kincardine and Deeside (Mr. Buchanan-Smith) and for others who worked for the Department of Energy at that time, they must carry the can because they were responsible. They failed to understand the need to separate responsibility for the running and the financing of North sea oil and the way in which that running and earning was administered on behalf of the people who did the running and earning and who so tragically paid with their lives on Piper Alpha. To give an example, paragraph 5.64 of the Burgoyne report says : "One of the grey' areas referred to above is the overlap in responsibility between the PED and the Certifying Authorities, in respect of the pipeline riser and other pipeline equipment on the installation. Although forming an essential part of the pipeline system, it clearly has a bearing on the integrity of the installation."
Nothing could be more relevant to the debate than that paragraph. The failure to ensure safety allowed that grey area to turn into the Piper Alpha disaster. Conservative Members cannot hide from their responsibility. Those grey areas were highlighted in the Burgoyne report, but nothing was done to ensure safety inspections. In the debate in 1980, I expressed my concern about a Department paying public funds for another arm of Government to carry out work on its behalf without checks being made to ensure that those public funds were being well spent, and that safety inspections were being carried out. I have told the Health and Safety Executive and the Health and Safety Commission numerous times when they have appeared before the Select Committee on Employment that they will have to carry the responsibility for the breakdown of safety, because they paid money for the petroleum engineering division to carry out work on its behalf which, as Piper Alpha showed, was not done as it should have been.
At long last, 11 years after the debate in 1980, the Government have accepted that responsibility for safety should pass to the Health and Safety Executive and the Health and Safety Commission, which will perhaps prevent tragedies in future. That does not help those people who lost their lives on Piper Alpha.
In the early 1980s, my union, Manufacturing, Science and Finance, was two separate unions--the ASTMS and
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TASS. One of the assistant general secretaries of the ASTMS, Roger Lyons, was involved in producing a minority report because he disagreed with the decision to contract out responsibility for safety to two arms of Government. If his comments had been noted, we might not be holding this debate.Cullen's recommendations have significant implications for the resourcing and staffing of the Health and Safety Executive. Because of its expertise, some of its staff will have to transfer to the new offshore division. We are concerned to ensure that the remainder of its staff do not suffer as a result of that transfer and that the new division is not financed from its current budget. The Secretary of State sought to assure the House that the HSE and offshore workers would be all right, but Lord Cullen identified Mr. Rimington, the director-general of the HSC, as the person who would be held responsible. However, as a civil servant he will be unable to say to the Treasury, "We need more money".
I am not confident that the Secretary of State for Employment will have that ability. Therefore, I am concerned about the financing of the new division. It will take more than the honeyed words of the Secretary of State for Energy, who will be giving up responsibility on1 April, to reassure me about the proper resourcing of the new division.
We are also concerned that the new division may seek to draw staff from other parts of the Health and Safety Executive. For example, the CIMAH inspectors, who deal with the control of major accident hazards, are the most likely people to be drawn into the new division. That would immediately affect the necessary work that that part of the HSE is carrying out.
Can the Minister tell us how the discussions are going? What numbers of staff are we talking about? If the Minister thinks that I am exaggerating, he need only ask his hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Stevens), who was a member of the Select Committee. We regularly heard from Dr. Cullen, when he was chairman of the HSE, and Mr. Rimington that they were finding it difficult to attract health and safety inspectors in the numbers and with the experience that they required. I notice that the hon. Member for Nuneaton is slumping slightly. Obviously he does not intend to intervene to disagree with me. He knows the position, and he can tell the Minister about it. He might even get the Select Committee minutes, which would show what was said.
The Health and Safety Executive has increasing difficulty in attracting properly trained staff to carry out its functions. It will be in the full glare of publicity with its new responsibility. I am not suggesting that it should not place major emphasis on getting the new division up and running, but that cannot be at the expense of any other part of the HSE. We want to know what the Government are doing about investigating that problem. We should like assurances tonight. If we are to attract staff of the proper calibre, the remuneration must be right, as the right hon. Member for Kincardine and Deeside pointed out. Remuneration of offshore inspectors has been given as the principal reason for the inability of the Department of Energy to maintain a full complement of inspectors. The remuneration should be high enough to ensure that high-calibre, qualified candidates are attracted to the work.
The right hon. Member for Kincardine and Deeside identified the need for the inspectors to be of sufficiently
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high calibre to raise issues, where appropriate, with the highest management of multinational oil companies. If they cannot do that, we will have no confidence in their ability to carry out their functions. Cullen's emphasis on safety management requires an inspectorate which is confident about its role, determined to seek a real operating culture and unperturbed by the industry and the Department, which are often united in formidable opposition to safety requirements which are likely to inhibit the work of contractors. I hope that the Minister will assure us that the salaries being offered will attract the highest calibre of staff. As my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Hughes) said, if that means seeking assistance on a temporary basis, I do not think that there would be opposition to that. That should not stop the Minister telling us that a training programme is already under way to ensure that highly qualified staff will be available quickly.Recommendation No. 1 is that operators should submit a safety case for each installation. That means that the new division must have considerable expertise in safety management and risk assessment. The Cullen inquiry showed only too clearly that that expertise was not present in the Department of Energy. The new division must be able quickly to build up expertise in that essential area. How will the new division attract suitable candidates? Can we have an assurance that the existing expertise of the HSE will not be diluted and left unable to deal adequately with major hazards onshore?
On the size of the inspectorate, we do not believe that its effectiveness should be measured by the frequency of visits to platforms and rigs. Each installation should have a full inspection at least every year, with further inspections being dependent on the results of that inspection and on the number of accidents, complaints and near misses reported to the inspectors. Those requirements should be the only determining factors for the size of the inspectorate. The inspectors in the Department of Energy did not show evidence of a strong approach to enforcement--for example, in the issuing of prohibition notices and the institution of legal proceedings. Indeed, we believe that the culture within the Department of Energy did not encourage the use of the full range of legal powers available to inspectors under section 20 of the Health and Safety at Work, etc. Act 1974, on the powers of the inspectorate. We want a guarantee that the Minister will insist that they use all their powers. Not only should the Minister say so, but the culture within the Department should change. Cullen identified the fact that the culture did not exist in the Department.
Inspectors may require further legal training to enable them to make full use of those powers. The use of legal powers has significant resource implications. The change in the approach to enforcement of health and safety requirements offshore must be recognised by increased resources for the new division. We want to hear whether the Government have taken that into account when they have been discussing resources with the Treasury.
With regard to the role of the certifying authority, Cullen did not make a specific recommendation. The current system needs reform. The new offshore division of the Health and Safety Executive should have a specific role in licensing the certifying authorities. The present relationship between the offshore operator and the
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certifying authorities is too close. Such an additional role for the HSE would also have resource implications which the Minister may deal with later. The Norwegian system, where certification is carried out by the regulatory body, is very resource-intensive.With regard to consultation with employees' representatives and the disclosure of information, we will expect the new offshore division to carry out full consultation at national, regional and installation level. Extensive and valuable consultation takes place at present with the Health and Safety Executive. That should be extended to the new division.
At installation level, we will expect inspectors to carry out their duty to disclose information to employees in accordance with section 28(8) of the 1974 Act, whether or not there are trade union representatives on the installation. We also expect employees or their representatives to receive, as a matter of course, copies of any enforcement notices issued and written details as set out in section 28(8) of the Act.
We are concerned at the lack of adequate disclosure of information to employees and their representatives offshore. In view of the remote location of offshore installations, we believe that contact with workers is extremely important. Consultation and disclosure have resource implications, but their inclusion in the Health and Safety at Work, etc Act shows the importance that Lord Robens believed that they should be given.
I am sorry that my hon. Friend and close colleague the Member for Aberdeen, North is not present at this moment ; however, I see that my hon. Friend and close colleague the Member for Aberdeen, South (Mr. Doran) is here. I do not subscribe to the belief that the health and safety offshore division should be transferred to Aberdeen. I do not deny that I speak as the chair of the MSF parliamentary group, whose membership extends throughout industry.
We are concerned about the Health and Safety Executive and the Health and Safety Commission. They have their own culture within that organisation. I have served my time in a shipyard and part of the culture of becoming a tradesman was working with other tradesmen. We do not believe that it is in the best interests of the new division to be simply moved to Aberdeen. We have identified London and Bootle as places where it might work best. That is where the majority of the Health and Safety Executive is. Clearly, the division needs a big expansion on the ground in Aberdeen to show the Government's determination, but we do not believe that it is not in the division's best interests for it to be moved to Aberdeen. If that were to happen, there would be the possibility--I put it no higher than that--that we might make the mistake that we made with the Burgoyne report. It might be too much like an extension of the Department of Energy. The new division is most likely to find its roots if it is clearly within the HSE, within that culture, in the same offices, with inspectors who deal with other hazardous areas. However, we do accept that there needs to be an increased presence in Aberdeen. I hope that I have not lost two friends.
I come now to the response of management in the oil companies to Cullen's recommendations on the management of oil safety. Cullen's recommendations affecting
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offshore operators can be divided into three broad categories. First, there are the recommendations upon which immediate action can be taken without waiting for regulations or interim guidelines from the enforcing authority. Secondly, there are recommendations for regulations to be made, but which operators can act upon when provided with interim guidelines by the enforcement authority. Thirdly, there are recommendations which require regulations to be made but to which operators should be considering and planning their responses.The Secretary of State has said that he is not willing at this point to tell us how everything will work. We want to spell out some of the areas to which we want the Minister to respond today or to which we want responses when the Secretary of States gives us his considered opinion. I therefore come to some of the key recommendations of the Cullen report and the action that we believe operators and the Department of Energy should have taken. We believe that the Department of Energy should, immediately after the publication of the Cullen report, have made clear in writing to all operators the recommendations upon which it expected immediate action to be taken. Most of those recommendations require action to be taken, in the words of the Cullen report, forthwith--without the need for regulation or interim guidelines from the Department. The Department of Energy should have drawn up interim guidelines on some recommendations and required operators to take action to implement the advice. Has that occurred, and if not, why not?
The Department of Energy should have given operators a clear timetable for the above steps to be taken and, in the event of such steps not being taken, enforcement notices and, in particular, improvement notices should have been issued under sections 2 and 3 of the Health and Safety at Work, etc Act 1974. To date, we have not heard of any such notices being issued and we are concerned that the timetable for Cullen's recommendations to be complied with may be lax.
We are also anxious that inspectors should use their full powers under section 20 of the Health and Safety at Work, etc Act to ensure that the immediate improvements recommended by Cullen are implemented. A clear programme and timetable for the legislation recommended by Cullen could and should have been drawn up and published so that the consultative process could be put fully into action. I hope that when the Minister replies he will tell us his views on that.
Recommendation 54 concerns the fire risk analysis. Companies should have been instructed by the Department of Energy to undertake fire risk analysis and given a date by which that should have been completed. Companies not complying with the date should have been issued with an improvement or prohibition notice. Has that happened, and if not, why not?
Recommendation 76 concerns the evacuation, escape and rescue analysis. Companies should have been instructed to complete the analysis forthwith. The Department of Energy should have agreed the timetable for completion, taking into account Cullen's recommendation that it should be completed quickly, and at least by November 1991. Are they on schedule, and if not, why not? The Minister will understand that that applies to operators with a large number of installations. We need to know just how far that timetable has got and how effective the Minister and the Department of Energy have been.
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Enforcement notices should have been issued where companies have not responded positively and with sufficient urgency.Recommendation 60 concerns smoke and gas ingress assessment. Companies should have carried out forthwith an assessment of the risk of ingress of smoke or gas into accommodation and fitted smoke and gas detectors and implemented ventilation shut-down procedures as in recommendation 57. Has that happened?
Recommendation 69 concerns an emergency systems review. Companies should have carried out a review forthwith of the ability of emergency systems to withstand severe accident conditions. Has that happened, how often and where? If not, why not, and what has happened since then?
Recommendation 44 concerns sub-sea isolation valves. Although Cullen allows a safety case to demonstrate whether sub-sea isolation valves are required to be fitted, there are some cases where the need for them to be fitted is in no doubt. Those include the main export lines from distant installations which will hold large inventories of gas or oil and where a large proportion would be liberated if there were a rupture. Examples include Forties Charlie to Cruden Bay, Claymore to Flotta, Cleeton to Dimlington, and the Brent export gas pipeline to St. Fergus. Others can readily be identified. Have all those sub-sea isolation valves now been fitted? If not, has the Department of Energy issued enforcement notices? We need to know. Recommendation 85 concerns personal survival and escape equipment. Has everyone on board an installation now been issued with the equipment detailed in the recommendation--in particular, a personal survival suit, a smoke hood, a torch, a life-jacket, and fireproof gloves? Does the Minister know? We need to know today whether the recommendation has been implemented.
Recommendation 34 concerns permit to work systems. Has the industry drawn up harmonised systems as recommended by Cullen? Is the Department of Energy satisfied with the revised system? We need to know today.
On recommendation 27--safety committees and safety
representatives--what steps have companies taken to support and encourage the involvement of offshore work forces in safety, as laid down in recommendation 27? I see the Minister relaxing, but there is plenty more to come. What evidence can companies provide to demonstrate their efforts? What are companies' objectives? Does the Minister know? I look forward to hearing exactly what they are in some detail, and to what extent they have been achieved.
Those are some of the comments which it is important to put on record and which, I hope, will prompt some answers from the Minister during the debate.
Industrial relations, health and safety and the offshore environment clearly affect all hon. Members and the people they represent. They affect people's working lives and, in the case of Piper Alpha, they cost people their lives. We therefore need to know what the Government have to say about those issues. The state of industrial relations has a proven impact on health and safety onshore and its impact can be crucial offshore, as Piper Alpha demonstrated. Pursuit of high levels of health and safety offshore is in part due to the appalling experiences of recent years, but more so than onshore the isolation of platforms and their residential status frequently reminds workers of the potential hazards.
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Can the Minister give answers to the following questions? Health and safety committee representatives onshore operate under regulations promulgated under the Health and Safety at Work, etc. Act 1974. While the Act applies offshore, regulations under the Act apply only if they say so--there is no such provision under onshore regulations. Until 1989, there were no statutory provisions for health and safety representatives or committees. A number of operators instituted committees on which their own employees were represented, whom they nominated. There was no training for representatives and they had no rights.There were two exceptions. First, in relation to Phillips Petroleum, my union--the MSF--won bargaining rights for the Hewett field off the Norfolk coast in 1978. The company agreed to set up a safety committee with union- nominated representatives as though it were onshore. Representatives all received time off with pay to attend union-organised safety courses. The system worked well, although contractors were not represented.
Secondly, MSF won representational rights with Occidental Petroleum for the Piper Alpha installation. As a result, a consultative committee was established to deal with all matters, including health and safety. The committee broke up when the company failed to provide representatives with a copy of the report on the 1984 explosion. That may well be one of the reasons why we are having this debate today. As regards safety committees, where do the difficulties lie at the moment? The problem has largely been the relationship between contractor and operator, usually represented on the installation by the offshore installation manager, whose word--as everyone knows--is law. In a few cases, the employee may have had a right established by agreement to raise safety issues, but only with his employer and not with the operator. The contractor-employer then had to raise the issue remotely with the operator and put relationships at risk, which could threaten future contracts and commercial relationships. As a result, onshore arrangements have never been successfully carried offshore. One cannot wonder at that--if there is a possibility of the contractors losing future contracts, there is no way they will push too hard against the wishes of the company concerned.
We need to know what the Government are doing to change that. We need to know how that pressure can be taken off. Clearly, one way is for companies to accept that they are the employer, or to insist that the contractors employ best practices while they are on the platform. If that were part of the contract, we might find that a different relationship existed offshore.
The priority when dealing with health and safety problems has to be the health and safety representative. While committees have a role, they cannot deal with issues which require immediate action. Therefore, representatives must be provided with facilities to do the job. First and foremost is the freedom to perform their role without hindrance or fear. Any representative has to guard against such pressures, but one who works for a contractor has two potential problems. The first is the ending of a contract. The client-- the operator--will usually veto all those contractors putting up for any new job and can, without the employee knowing, veto anyone of whom the operator disapproves. Clearly, if the operators have that power there will be pressure upon any individual representative. Those of us who have been trade union
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representatives before coming here and have spent our lives representing others know that if one puts oneself forward to represent a group of workers one always has that fear--wondering what the management's reaction will be. In an industry where bad practice exists or which is badly regulated--an industry with old-fashioned equipment where change has to take place--pressure on individuals might take the form of a fear that their careers in the company might quickly end when they stop being representatives. They might think that their careers would end if they took on such responsibilities. As my hon. Friends demonstrated earlier, we know that an unknown number of persons--there is no record--are now permanently unemployable offshore because they were prepared to take up responsibilities, whether as health and safety representatives or simply trying to represent workers at a trade union level.Black lists need to be abolished, for the benefit of the industry. If they do not go, the industry cannot function properly. The climate on installations will never improve while the company, through the contractor, can take action against a person rightly raising concerns on behalf of other workers. The Government need to play their part in that.
As we move to the next stage of operations in the North sea, and to the end of those operations, whenever that will be--no one wants it to reach that stage quickly--there will be more and more pressure on companies to ensure that there is little or no opposition to what they want to do. We have to ensure that those problems are tackled. The second area of concern for a safety representative is the power of the offshore installation manager. I did not meet such a creature on the one visit that I made to an offshore facility. No one seemed to have horns or a tail, or walk about with a big stick, so I am not sure what oil installation managers actually look like. Nevertheless, the stories that I have heard suggest that they can be quite alarming, and their powers are certainly alarming if not exercised properly. One of the benefits of a debate of this kind is the opportunity that it gives us to cite our wider experience and knowledge. The Select Committee on Employment, for instance, has been considering recruitment practices in industry generally. All the evidence suggests that the way in which an organisation operates depends entirely on the extent to which its chief executive is involved. There can be no improvement unless oil installation managers--who are bound to have responsibilities of one kind or another, and who are directly responsible for recruitment in some instances--are shown that the way in which they operated before the Piper Alpha disaster is no longer acceptable. Their performance must be monitored, and the Government have a role to play in that regard.
Training is essential for health and safety representatives. Even when they are elected, the facilities for their training are largely controlled by their employers. Training is predominantly technical, and involves little instruction in presentational skills. The TUC and individual unions organise onshore courses, and have successfully trained many thousands of representatives over the past 15 years, but offshore representatives are denied such courses. All courses must be approved not by the employer but by the operator, and attendance on an unapproved course could
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result in the representative's not being paid. If the Minister doubts that, he should note that Shell issued a directive to that effect to its contractors in 1990. In many cases, not only will representatives be unpaid, but they will not be required to return when their contracts have expired.Whether Conservative Members like it or not, no offshore environment will change without proper union recognition. The companies and operators concerned must accept that. I remember making many representations to my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield about offshore union representation when he was at the Department of Energy ; it is a shame that we were not able to achieve our aims before he left the Department.
We are very unhappy about the Government's failure to involve themselves in the issue. The operators have argued that they cannot implement the onshore regulations because there is so little union recognition offshore, implying that that is due to the low level of union membership. However, when it has been possible to test the level of membership by means of checks or ballots, widespread support has been shown to exist. On seven Shell installations, ballots of the work force demonstrated levels of support as high as 85 per cent. As a result of those ballots, Shell agreed to representational rights on conditions and pay, but not on health and safety.
MSF has a long-standing agreement with Phillips Petroleum for the Hewett field, which has almost 100 per cent. union membership--that includes the oil installation managers. Phillips recently agreed to union recognition, in response to the demand of 83 per cent. of its employees on the Maureen platform. According to the management, Occidental's recognition agreement expired when the platform was destroyed, which seems rather tragic.
Conservative Members may feel some concern about our demands for trade union recognition. We have made it clear that we will allow ACAS to ensure that ballots are run properly, and that the questions on the ballot paper are acceptable to everyone. We may even allow ACAS to determine what constitutes significant union membership. I believe that 40 per cent. membership would allow us to claim that a ballot should take place. What is the Minister's view?
We have held seven ballots and won them all, with majorities as high as 80 per cent., but other companies are not prepared even to discuss the holding of such ballots. Following recognition claims made more than four years ago on the Viking Loggs and Hutton TLP fields, Conoco has made it clear that it does not want any third party intervening. We asked the Minister's predecessor--the right hon. Member for City of Chester (Mr. Morrison)--many times to intervene on our behalf, but the Government--who are supposedly so keen to ensure that ballots are held, and that people are allowed to exercise their individual rights--have done nothing to help. At one stage a clear majority of Mobil workers on the Beryl field wanted trade union membership, but the company refused. We asked the Government to help us, but met with no success.
We are also concerned about contract employees. If they are not given the training and representation that they need, they may suffer. I am glad to see that the right hon. Member for Kincardine and Deeside has returned, as I had intended to make this point during his speech. We want a skilled work force in the North sea, and we believe that that will be possible only if that work force is trained and experienced. Continuity of employment is the best way to
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achieve that. At present, more and more companies are trying to move towards a single contractor, without considering the implications of the change that that involves.When employees are employed by a new contractor, they lose their right to redundancy pay and representation regarding pay and conditions. That does not lead to improved skills and the continuity of employment on North sea installations that is required. For example, Shell told Press that it would like it to become the main contractor in the Lemen and Indefatigable fields. One of the contractors at present is McAlpine, which provides good training for its crane drivers and mechanics. Shell has suggested to Press that if it gets the contract it might subcontract some of the work to McAlpine and keep the work force on the platform. If the negotiations do not go well, however, and Press becomes the sole contractor, all the skill and expertise of the work force will be lost--as well as their trade union rights and their right to redundancy pay. Some of these people have served McAlpine for eight years.
Does the Minister believe, as we do, that companies such as Shell should employ their work force directly and ensure that they are given training? They ought, at least, to be made responsible for ensuring that the contractors provide training.
We are happy for the services of ACAS to be used to determine whether there should be trade union recognition on any particular platform. We have never been afraid to use the ballot box so that offshore workers can demonstrate that they want trade union recognition. Furthermore, we have never been afraid to argue that industrial relations are good on platforms where there is trade union recognition. We do not want a repetition of what happened last summer. I met the Minister's predecessor, together with some of my trade union colleagues, and warned him that he faced a summer of problems if he did not do something about trade union recognition. As he was about to visit various offshore platforms, he agreed to look into whether there was any aggro or dissatisfaction. After he had visited those platforms he said that nobody had asked him about trade union recognition. There was an immediate denial of his statement by individuals who, despite the fact that action could have been taken against them, were prepared to identify themselves and say that they had asked the Minister for trade union recognition. The Minister seemed to want to act like the three wise monkeys --to hear nothing, to see nothing and to say nothing--but the issue will not go away and we shall continue to raise it. Moreover, trade union recognition is in the Government's interests as well as in the interests of the economy and industry.
The operators have arranged a cartel among themselves. They provide a package of similar terms and conditions for their own employees, but do not allow contractors to enter into single bargaining agreements. There are only two exceptions. The first relates to the offshore construction contractors. For some years there was a trade union agreement covering the hook-up period. It ran from the contract being placed to the start of production. Even though the same workers were employed to do exactly the same work after production started, they would go on to a set of non- negotiated and worse terms. The hook-up period was crucial to the operators' cash flow. After that, any industrial action was unlikely to affect
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production. The second concerned caterers. An agreement exists covering catering workers--in the northern sector only and even then not on drilling rigs. A combination of industrial action and high labour turnover produced that agreement. For either agreement to work, the operators must agree to accept bids for work only from conforming contractors.Early in 1990, the principle of an agreement covering all contract workers on the United Kingdom continental shelf was put to a number of bodies, including the Offshore Construction Contractors. Only half an hour before a joint meeting to discuss the proposition, the OCC was telephoned by a representative of UKOOA and told that UKOOA could not agree to go along with it, thus making any agreement worthless. A summer of industrial action followed, and that will be repeated unless such problems are tackled.
A negotiated agreement would provide a number of measures which would have an immediate impact on health and safety. Among them is reduced labour turnover, which would retain skills and experience in the industry, the absence of which leads directly to an unsafe workplace. Improved morale would increase co-operation and concentration, particularly among contractor staff. It would remove the need for the 1989 regulations and enable the 1977 regulations to be used to provide union safety representatives. Such representatives, rather than the employers, would have the right to choose trainers and would receive the backing of their union, thus reducing victimisation and providing the resources and independent advice needed properly to perform the safety role.
Those are small measures, but we believe that if the Government supported them and argued with us that the companies should accept them, we could improve both the environment and the chances of the returns from the North sea continuing to help the economy. When the recommendations in the Cullen report are finally implemented, all installations will be required to possess a safety case, provided by the operator and vetted by the Health and Safety Executive. It seems likely that the safety committee will have access to it only after it has been agreed. It looks as though, even for existing installations, the safety committee or individual representatives will have no say. For new installations, there will be no safety committee whose representatives can be consulted. In Norway, safety committees are consulted on such issues. For new platforms, the unions themselves are consulted about the initial design philosophy.
As I have said, MSF held recognition for Occidental employees on Piper Alpha. When the replacement platform was being designed, MSF asked to discuss the design philosophy--in particular, its view concerning a separate accommodation unit, bridge-linked. We were told that it was nothing to do with us. The recognition agreement died with our members on Piper Alpha. That is something with which the company and the Government will have to live. I am not saying that the Government were directly responsible for Piper Alpha, but had it not been for their failure to understand that they needed to play a role in convincing the contractors that they--the contractors--should involve those whom they employed on a facility through their recognised union representatives, the Piper Alpha disaster might just not have occurred. The fact that, in this case, we can show that the
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