House of Commons Hansard Debates for 26 Oct 1993

Mr. Alexander : I understand what the hon. Gentleman is saying. I was just going to come to that precise point. I accept that he is an expert in the industry. My reading of the regulations is that each mine must have a management structure with suitably qualified people who will give precedence to health, safety and welfare above all other duties. That must be a step forward and not a step back, despite what the hon. Gentleman says.

We have two large codes of practice. They are not flimsy documents ; they are detailed and the duties are specific on safety, health and first aid-- [Interruption.] Opposition Members may scoff. As I said, they are entitled to make the worst of these matters. Conservative Members are equally entitled to be positive about the proposals. The lack of reduction of the powers of intervention by the inspector of mines is important. There is no diminution of his powers. He will continue to have all the powers originally given to him, or them, by the Health and Safety at Work, etc. Act. That is where I would have disagreed with the right hon. Member for Doncaster, Central.

Mr. Cryer : Is not it true that, in the statutory instrument, the obligation on people to carry out statutory duties is qualified by the phrase, "so far as is practicable"? Does not that phrase have a legal definition in court actions for compensation, to the effect that an employer or owner who says that the cost is too high is justified in not applying those safety standards? Therefore, is not that a reduction in the standard from the absolute duty that care shall be provided?

Mr. Alexander : I understand what the hon. Gentleman says, but I do not reach that conclusion when I read elsewhere in the regulations that there must be present everywhere and at all times someone suitably qualified whose paramount duty is to ensure that safety is the first consideration.

Mr. Illsley : The hon. Gentleman might not be aware that at present any district underground must have a suitably trained person--in this case a deputy--who is capable of and trained in taking readings for levels of gas. Under the regulations, it will be apparent that whole districts will be without a trained person in charge who is capable of and trained in taking readings for gas.

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Mr. Alexander : I was not aware of that. I am still not sure that will be the case, but that will be for the Minister to argue. I cannot deal precisely with that point.

Having read the regulations, and despite my criticism of the timing, I do not see that they represent a diminution in standards of safety in mines. If I thought that they did--I hope that the Opposition will give me credit for this in view of my interest in the coal mining industry--I would not not vote for them at any price. I am not a party hack. I am a party man, but I am also a man who looks after his constituents, who, in this case, are those in the mining communities of north Nottinghamshire.

My concern has been with timing and the method of introduction, which, like so much that has happened to the coal mining industry in the past year, has left much to be desired. I wish that the Government could have found a more sensible way of introducing the regulations, and had been a little more sensitive about their timing.

Several hon. Members rose --

Mr. Deputy Speaker : Order. In the two hours available for the rest of the debate, no fewer than nine hon. Members, including Front Benchers, hope to catch my eye. If hon. Members co-operate by making short speeches, all hon. Members might be successful.

5.2 pm

Mr. Malcolm Bruce (Gordon) : I shall endeavour to be brief. The hon. Member for Newark (Mr. Alexander) addressed the issue of timing. I hope that he will accept that timing is extremely important and that it is not only a matter of cynicism ; it is a matter of mismanagement and incompetence, although it could be interpreted as cynicism. Two particular points of timing will not be lost even on people with no real connection with the mining industry : first, major changes in working practices underground were published the week after the House rose for the summer recess and were implemented before we had an opportunity to debate them ; and, secondly, in the Queen's Speech next month the Government will introduce measures for the privatisation of the coal industry. Those factors will not be lost on anyone. What is the prime motivation for those changes? Can we be absolutely sure that it is simply a totally objective and right moment to introduce new working practices that affect the operation of mines? I will not follow the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson), who expressed his view on that in his inimitable style. The Minister cannot be surprised that people make deductions from that coincidence of timing.

Another matter of some concern is that, within the same period, we had the Bilsthorpe colliery disaster. As one who is not as well informed or as closely involved as other hon. Members, I felt that the safety inspectors were remarkably quick to deduce that the bolting mechanism was not the source of the problem. I do not question their integrity and am not in any position to comment on them, but the speed with which they made their statement demonstrated one thing clearly to me, if I had not known it already : there clearly is great concern about the practice among the people who work underground. That concern cannot lightly be put aside. It is not right to introduce measures in

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which mineworkers--who are supposed to be protected by them--do not have confidence. That is a matter of extreme importance and it is one that we should take on board.

The specific point as I understand it--perhaps the key point--is the role of the deputy manager in determining the safe operation of the pit and his authority to stop the process if he believes that that is justified. First, it is apparent that deputy managers spend more of their time underground. Secondly, they are specifically charged with safety as their prime consideration.

Under the new regulations, it seems to me that the only person with authority to stop the process is the manager of the pit, who, in most cases, will not be underground. The only responsibility that any other operative has is to report a breach of safety if that occurs. One needs a much quicker line of response. That point--I am sorry that the Minister is not listening--seems to be an inherent sign of a change for the worse. Under the new regulations, the ability to halt the process because of a safety risk has been removed further from the process than was the case under the old regulations. I should like the Minister to answer that point at the end of the debate. Unless he can satisfy me that that is not the case, that example will be a clear indication of new regulations weakening existing safety standards.

I should have thought that it might be appropriate, if one were interested in strengthening regulations, to say that, at all times, there must be someone underground who has the authority to override the process for safety considerations. That would be an improvement on existing regulations.

Mr. Etherington : The hon. Gentleman raises an interesting point. I, too, shall be interested to hear what the Minister has to say. Like many people, I spent 21 years working underground on the coal face. I was a fitter. Under the 1954 regulations, I had the power--under section 81 of the Mines and Quarries Act, which talks about machinery being free of patent defect--to stop any machinery that I did not think was operating properly. The hon. Gentleman is quite right : I would no longer have that power. At the time that I was working, the colliery manager could not override my decision, nor could the chairman of the British Coal Board at Hobart house, because I was carrying out my duties under the statute that was laid down in the House. If I were a fitter now and worked on the coal face, I would no longer have that power and could be overruled.

Mr. Bruce : I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for reinforcing a point from a period of specific personal knowledge.

I should like to take up a point that the Minister made. The point is not entirely surprising but is questionable. Let us keep the National Association of Colliery Overmen, Deputies and

Shotfirers--NACODS--and the National Union of Mineworkers out of it, just to make it less sensitive. The Minister seemed to imply that NACODS' reservations about the regulations were entirely to do with its concern about its membership and its role as a trade union. That is unworthy of him. I do not think that it is right to suggest that a trade union with that degree of specialism is not capable of being persuaded--and needs to be persuaded if the new regulations are to work.

Even if the regulations are good in law, principle and practice, if the people who are to operate and benefit from them have no confidence in them, their morale will be adversely affected. No Minister should be satisfied with

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that as a way to advance safety and working in the mines. The Minister accuses the trade unions of being motivated only by the recruitment and retention of members. That invites the

counter-argument that managers are, by definition, concerned only with production and profitability, which also gives rise to the possibility of compromise and conflict of interest.

It is essential that we strike the right balance in safety matters. Certainly, we want to allow people to run viable and profitable pits, but we want those pits to be run so that the safety of those who are expected to do the work at the most dangerous end of the job is not compromised. That is the responsibility of the Minister and it is the responsibility of the Health and Safety Commission and the Health and Safety Executive, and it does not seem to me that they have achieved the degree of consensus that would justify the claim that this is the right time at which to introduce the present regulations. I should like to draw attention to one or two good points in the regulations. In particular, it is essential that a pit manager should be allowed to manage only one pit, and it is good that that has been written into the provisions. It is important, too, that the pit manager should have the right to challenge the pit owner in the interests of safety. I have a slight reservation about that provision, however, because it is possible for the pit owner also to be the pit manager. Who would provide the element of intervention in such circumstances?

The Minister reminded us that the original regulations date back to 1908 ; that regulations have been introduced in the intervening period, in 1947 and 1974 ; and that we are talking about a process of continuous change. I do not think that any hon. Member is frightened of change or believes that all the regulations are wholly unacceptable and that there is not a case for modernising and updating the procedures. I hope that the Minister will recognise, however, that there are one or two factors that suggest that the regulations would weaken safety rather than strengthen it, which is crucial, and that his timing is extremely suspect. The Minister cannot proceed simply on the ground that he has a majority in the House and disregard the damaging effect of introducing safety regulations that do not have the confidence of those working in the industry. So far, he has failed to secure that confidence, and I urge him not to force the provisions through until he has won the industry over.

5.11 pm

Mr. Michael Alison (Selby) : Many of those who are laymen when it comes to the technicalities of these complicated and important matters-- that includes most people who will be following the debate as well as many taking part in it--will feel that my hon. Friend the Minister made a fair point when he said that the origin or provenance of the regulations was an expert body with an absolutely impeccable reputation and pedigree--the Health and Safety Commission and its Executive. I am glad, too, that my hon. Friend emphasised that the consideration of possible beneficial changes in mine safety regulations goes back a long way.

My hon. Friend reasonably suggested that, given the list of contributing members, the proposition that the Health and Safety Executive or Commission could in some way have been beguiled, infiltrated or corrupted by the influence of Ministers and Tory policy fades into nonentity

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the moment it is made. The Health and Safety Commission would have faced many resignations and would never have been able to present serious proposals to the Minister or the House if there were any sense in which it was the kept woman of a Tory Government or a Tory Cabinet. It was manifestly doing its own job in an effective and serious-minded way and, although these are highly controversial and delicate matters, it has produced the specific and agreed recommendations and ideas that we are debating today. My hon. Friend was more than reasonable in emphasising that.

I have listened with great interest to the debate, and with even greater interest to the right hon. Member for Doncaster, Central (Sir H. Walker)-- at whose feet I have sat in Committee and with whom I have debated--and, in doing so, have picked up nuances and detailed ideas about and insights into industry that I could have picked up nowhere else. It seems to me--again, as a layman--that the Opposition are perhaps trying to prove too much by suggesting that everything that is in place now has the quality of the law of the Medes and the Persians and should not be interfered with, touched, modified or improved in any way. Opposition Members swing from that proposition which is not a convincing one--to the proposition that everything that we are considering today is poison in every root and branch. Both propositions are unacceptable.

Safety regulations have to be changed, improved and

modernised--following a lengthy period of consideration, consultation, submission and debate--as part of the evolution and modernisation of any industry. I am thinking in particular of the railways and of the air transport industry, in which changes have had to be made to take account of considerations of passenger time and of new machinery and processes.

I remember some of the features of the old safety regulations in the days when steam operated on the railways. With the fundamental changes in the mechanical processes by which the railways operate, all that has had to go. Similarly, today's pits are unrecognisable. I speak with some experience of the machinery used and the activities that take place in the Selby complex of mines. It seems eminenssional body such as the HSE and its Commission. I commend my hon. Friend the Minister for placing so much emphasis on the origin and provenance of the regulations.

My hon. Friend will understand, however, that changes can give rise to anxiety, especially among ordinary rank-and-file miners and individuals engaged in coal mining, although not necessarily at the coal face-- especially given that they are bombarded with allegations of nefarious intent or distorted purpose, which, for people engaged in the day-to-day activities at the coal face, can be disturbing and unnerving.

I have received detailed representations from a number of my constituents who work in or near the Selby complex of mines. I hope that my hon. Friend will find time to address himself once more to the delicate subject of the possibility, at least, of a division of responsibility. I want to quote from a quite articulate letter from a NACODS official in my constituency :

"We also fail to see where the Health and Safety Executive"

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the official at least gives credit to where the idea originated "have improved or bettered existing legislation by splitting the dual duties of pit inspection from supervision, which today are undertaken by the single pit deputy, replacing this with, first, a person doing inspections and, secondly, a command supervisor." The official goes on to make this trenchant and important point : "By doing this, they are confusing who has total and absolute control should an emergency occur."

I should like my hon. Friend to address himself to what would happen in the very rare and extremely undesirable event of a real underground emergency. We all know that different voices giving different orders from different quarters can be desperately hazardous and can result in a failure to move whatever action is necessary at that moment in a precisely defined and necessarily correct direction.

I know that my hon. Friend will be able to reassure me to some extent by referring to the fact that the regulations allow the functions of supervision and inspection to be carried out by the same person or by different people ; they introduce the dual option. It is clearly most important that that function, whether dual or in a single hand, should be carried out by qualified and competent people. Will my hon. Friend assure me that full thought has been given to the hazard that might arise, especially in an emergency, if the option for a dual hat between supervision and inspection applies in a pit? A constituent goes so far to reinforce the idea of the single deputy as to point out that, at present, an identified person, a named individual, has immediate charge of men and operations and concern consequently arises over any step in the direction of less identity, more diffuse responsibility and less capacity to be able to pinpoint the person who carries the can.

I know that my hon. Friend the Minister is an expert in this area and that he will have been briefed adequately by the Health and Safety Executive. It must have had good reason for giving the option of abandoning the single mandate and moving to the possible option of locating responsibility for supervision and inspection under different heads. If he can reassure us on that point and refer back to the considered view of the executive and why it is confident that it is for the best, I and my constituents who have made representations to me would be much reassured and would believe that the regulations stand a better chance of gaining acceptance and confidence in the mining industry.

5.20 pm

Mr. Peter Hardy (Wentworth) : The right hon. Member for Selby (Mr. Alison) has done the House a service because his question to the Minister provided reason for the Minister's apology. The National Association of Colliery Overmen, Deputies and Shotfirers certainly should receive an apology from the Minister for his unworthy comments. The association's objection stemmed from the point that the right hon. Member for Selby put to the Minister. I look forward to hearing the Minister's explanation because during the months of consultation that very point has been at the heart of NACODS' rejection of the proposals.

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There are few pits now and there may be fewer still in a few months' time, but there will still be pits and there will be new ones and unmothballed ones when it is recognised that what has been done was foolish and that we should not lock away an important and fortunate national resource.

The regulations are designed for the time when pits have been privatised. Their purpose is to make the industry more appropriate for privatisation by weakening existing legislation, which is why NACODS and most people who have an interest in the industry oppose them. The safety priority is being weakened. Yes, a manager will have to run a pit effectively and safely, but the Minister did not point out the qualification

"so far as is practicable",

and that will cover an enormous amount.

The same attitude is not evident among Tories as when Winston Churchill spoke about the need for statutory qualified underground officials. The regulations provide for supervisors, who, as the right hon. Member for Selby pointed out, will not have the traditional statutory powers that have saved untold numbers of lives in pits since the law was made.

Representatives of the South African mining industry are visiting London today ; indeed, one of them has been in this building. They are here to look at our safety arrangements for mines because they recognise the need to promote mine safety in their country. What are they to take back with them--the practices and regulations that hitherto applied, or this wretched, shabby lot that we are debating today? I know what advice any responsible person would give them, and I hope that it is the advice that NACODS is giving.

A few years ago it was suggested that colliery deputies should be fully included in the management structure of the coal industry, solely oriented within the production system. NACODS quite properly said that its obligations to safety meant that it could not accept that other function because safety had to be paramount. Of course there must be regard for production, and underground officials played a significant part in the immense achievement of increasing productivity by 36 per cent. in the last year. They did so on the understanding that precedents for safety would remain and that safety would continue to be their prime duty. That duty is weakened by the regulations and it is unwise and wrong for the overriding priority for safety in the mining industry to be removed, as it will be when the underground supervisor will have to report a hazard rather than respond to it.

The regulations are not only defective in character but, as the Minister confessed, have been furtively introduced. Interestingly, they are statutory instrument No. 1987 and were laid with orders such as No. 1930 and No. 1950, suggesting quite a substantial delay, when they could have been introduced, despite the ministerial changes, before the House rose for the recess. It is sad that the matter should have been so delayed, but it shows the arrogance of office to which Shakespeare referred.

British Coal, too, deserves criticism. Those responsible at Hobart house showed their disdain for Parliament when they decided that the regulations should be implemented on 1 October--before the House resumed. I said in the House last Monday that British Coal had tried to deny my suggestion that it was contemptuous of Parliament in 1989. I still think that it was contemptuous of Parliament in 1989, but it has certainly been contemptuous of Parliament in 1993, and it may have been so with the approval and

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admiration of the Minister because I do not believe that it would have decided to announce the implementation early in August if it had not first consulted the Department. British Coal and Ministers have revealed their contempt for Parliament and for history.

Hon. Members who represent the older coalfields--Durham, Wales, Scotland, Yorkshire, Lancashire and Northumberland--will be aware of the many traces of the past in their constituencies. There are memorials on which there are lists of names of hundreds of people who died in colliery catastrophes. There will be another list of names tonight--of hon. Members who either could not come into the Chamber to listen to a debate on matters of life and death, of hon. Members who popped in and out, or of hon. Members who allowed themselves to be beguiled into the Government Lobby.

The number of people who died in major tragedies was dwarfed by the number of men, and often children, who died in ones and twos in days when it was not even thought necessary to have inquests when people were killed down a pit. Reaction in the House and outside to those horrors led to the introduction of the regulations that are now being scrapped. The Minister fails to understand--I wish that his colleague, the Minister for Energy, was here--that the arguments that the Government are now advancing to defend their regulations were used in Parliament and outside to oppose the safety regulations 90 or 100 years ago.

I heard the Minister say on television the other day that there had been long periods of consultation about the regulations--consultation with the miners, British Coal and the Health and Safety Executive. It is true that the consultations lasted for some years, but no one appeared to advise the Minister that what he and his colleagues were doing was preposterous. The Minister and his colleagues have been saying that the arrangements under the order would be a vast improvement : there would not be one man with a statutory responsibility for safety--the colliery deputy--because everyone would have responsibility. That was the very argument used against the appointment of the deputy with a statutory obligation.

I wish that Ministers did not have such contempt for history. They are very good at accountancy, making money and beguiling the electorate with the assistance of a servile press which may not even report our argument tonight, but they do not understand the mining industry, which they are now embarrassing, or the country, which they are misruling.

Mr. Illsley : The Minister said that the regulations were being introduced because of inadequacies in the legislation. Is my hon. Friend aware of any such inadequacies?

Mr. Hardy : No, I am not, but I shall not detain the House for too long.

I have been a Member of Parliament for a long time. I have met some great people, many who may become great, many more who think that they will be great and some who think that they are great but are not. One man who was a considerable source of inspiration to me, although he never claimed to be great, and for whom I had enormous respect was my father, a colliery deputy. He was not an especially articulate man, but he was very honest. Being brought up in his home, I learnt certain values. I learnt why he was respected in our community. He was

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not a boss's man, but he was concerned about production and believed that a man should have a fair day's pay for a fair day's work. He was still popular because his men, of whom there were many in those days, knew that he was skilled in the ways of the mine and that he was honest and would not allow corners to be cut or their lives to be put at risk.

In the past, the role of the honest colliery deputy was important and, but for the shysters on the Government Benches who are giving away the mining industry, it would be important in the future.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Morris) : Order. I am not sure whether I heard the hon. Gentleman correctly, but perhaps he would like to rephrase his comment.

Mr. Hardy : I should have thought that the word "shysters" as applied collectively to the current Administration was entirely appropriate. However, I do not wish to incur your disapproval in any way, Mr. Deputy Speaker, so if I can replace the word "shysters" with the words "this group of venal men", I am happy to do so. [ Hon. Members :-- "And women."] And women, although the former right hon. Member for Finchley has departed.

The serious point is that men such as my father saved many lives. They were able to do so because of their experience and knowledge of the pit and because of their statutory capacity. That capacity placed a considerable duty on their shoulders but that duty is to be taken away. Without the capacity to fulfil a statutory regulation, not even the most honest supervisor will be able to act to save lives. The right hon. Member for Selby was right to ask about safety and responsibility. The arrangements will weaken the capacity which has served our industry well, which has made it safe and which has made it a model to which mining industries in other parts of the world can turn to ensure that they have safe arrangements.

The regulations are intended to assist privatisation and profit. [Interruption.] It is no good the Minister shaking his head because we know that the regulations are fitting the industry for the marketplace and the sale room. If that is not so, why did the Minister with responsibility for coal last Wednesday shelter behind the sub judice rule, which apparently does not apply today, and refuse to answer my request for a guarantee that a foreign company, which does not have a good safety record, would not be allowed to buy parts of the British mining industry?

One such company has received 1,474 citations from the American safety inspectorate regarding faults that it had not put right but of which it had been notified over seven or eight years. Are the Government going to allow companies with such records to take over our mining industry? If they do, those companies will do what they like and will shelter behind the phrase

"so far as is practicable"

which the Minister has provided for them.

Why did the Minister not explain what

"so far as is practicable"

meant? Does he acknowledge that having such words at the heart of the regulations compels us to ask questions? As I do not believe that the Minister is capable of answering our questions, I trust that I and my colleagues will be joined in the Division by many hon. Members from the smaller parties. I regret that hon. Members from Ulster are not present ; they claim to be part of the United Kingdom, so I hope that none of them will join the Government in the

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Lobby tonight. If they have an obligation to the rest of the United Kingdom, they should join us. In addition to my colleagues and those in the smaller parties, I hope that the Conservatives who have a conscience and those with constituency obligations to the coalfields will join us because we are sure that our cause is right.

5.36 pm

Mr. Joseph Ashton (Bassetlaw) : I am sure that hon. Members will not mind if I begin by sending the House's condolences to the wife of David Shelton, aged 31, who was a constituent of mine. He was killed in the Bilsthorpe disaster and lived in Blyth. The disaster has been mentioned many times, but I emphasise the fact that the inquiry was far from satisfactory and I hope that the demands for a further inquiry will be met.

The regulations, which affect safety standards, are clearly related to the privatisation of the industry. There is a strange parallel with the privatisation of prisons because both privatisations involve a strong safety element. Let us consider how the Government approached the privatisation of a part of the prison service. They let Group 4 take control of transferring prisoners to and from the courts. What happened? The people who took on that task did not know a great deal about the job and were spread over the front pages of the newspapers because of their lack of experience in handling prisoners. Indeed, for a while, they became a laughing stock. The proposals to sell the pits offer a parallel. Private enterprise is to be put in charge of the pits, and the new owners will remove nearly all the safety regulations and run them for their own profit. The prisons were also softened up for privatisation.

The two industries are parallel in the sense that very few people have been in prison and very few have been down a coal mine. The Government, or the Department of Trade and Industry, have consistently reduced the number of prison officers and refused to listen to their good advice. There have been more prison riots, more disturbances and more problems because the Government refused to listen to the people who work at the pit face in the prisons ; exactly the same will happen at the pit face down the mines. Very few people have ever been down a coal mine, including Members of Parliament, civil servants or those who live in the neighbourhood, and very few know about the safety standards. How many hon. Members realise what it is like to crawl 200 yds on one's hands and knees in a seam not much higher than a kitchen table, banging one's head every two yards, surrounded by nothing but thick dust and filth, with no light except that from the lamp on one's helmet, and a horrendous coal cutter four or five feet in diameter going at 2,000 revs a minute not two feet from one's hands or face, chopping off coal a tonne at a time?

Men have to work in those horrendous conditions, and all the public have ever seen of them is a film on television. I am a little critical of some of my hon. Friends, many of whom have said that they worked in the pit for 20 or 30 years. Over that time they seem to have become used to those conditions, not realising how revolting such conditions are to the average member of the public, and to the average workman in any other industry. I have never worked down the pit, but my father was a miner, and many

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years ago I found out that there are no toilets down a coal mine. Howe many people know that? The miners have to use a shovel for a chamberpot.

There is a saying in the pit that miners, to use biblical terms, "shit on a shovel." They use coal dust for their toilet paper, because there is nowhere to wash their hands. The Minister grins and laughs, and looks surprised. He does not know about that, yet he is the Minister introducing what purport to be health and safety regulations. What sort of health regulations can there be when there are no toilets down the coal mines, and nowhere for a man to wash his hands before he eats his sandwiches during his break? He simply has to throw what is on the shovel on to the outbye and let the roof fall in on it. He cannot wash until he gets to the surface and the pithead baths and showers, perhaps three hours later. That is what health and safety is about.

There are also pneumoconiosis and emphysema. The House resisted the idea of paying compensation, and I am sorry that the previous occupant of the Chair, Mr. Lofthouse, is no longer in the Chamber, because he did so much for miners' health in that connection. He devoted his life to that cause.

Everyone with relatives in the coal industry knows how many men are carried out of the pit to the hospital. In Bassetlaw we managed to get a new hospital simply because while I was taking a health Minister round the hospital to show him why we needed a new one a man was brought out of the pit on a stretcher covered in blood and filth and there was nowhere to treat him properly. That is what the mining industry is about.

Mining is about foul air, too. Murderers, rapists and bank robbers serving long sentences wreck prisons and smash up their showers and toilets in some kind of protest, and people say, "We must stop slopping out." There is no slopping out down the pit. Below people's feet in my constituency, in south Yorkshire and north Nottinghamshire, there are men fighting for their jobs, fighting for the right to work like animals, while prisoners rioting above the ground get far more attention than the miners have ever had.

Who will be in charge of implementing the safety regulations? The manager. What an excuse ! There is not even a Judge Tumim, the prison inspector who mildly complains that at the Wolds the prisoners stay in bed until half- past 10 with the curtains drawn because the sun would get in their eyes and wake them up. He is the inspector of prisons, and I am glad that he is, but where is the inspector of mines? Where is the new inspector who will go round every coal mine and ask why there is nowhere for the men to wash their hands? The conditions are primitive. We are arguing about technicalities instead of establishing the day-to-day decencies that exist in every other industry. One of my hon. Friends referred to what Winston Churchill said in 1932. That was before I was born, but my dad was in prison--sorry, I mean, down the mine--then. He probably would have been better off in prison than down the mine even in those days. Winston Churchill said that

"special circumstances existed to differentiate coalminers from many other industries Others have spoken of the heat of the mine, the danger of firedamp, of the cramped position, of the muscular exertion of the miner, at work in the galleries perhaps a mile under the ground. I select the single fact of deprivation of light. That alone is enough to justify Parliament in directing upon the industry of coalmining a specially severe scrutiny and introducing regulations of a different character from those elsewhere."

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What has happened since 1932? The pits are deeper, hotter and more humid. Extraction rates have increased, and the heavy-duty machinery turns the coal out faster. Men are working more dangerous machinery in more cramped conditions, and they are working longer shifts. In longer shifts men get tired. We can increase the machinery ; we can increase the productivity ; we cannot increase human strength and endurance.

The National Union of Mineworkers has proved the dangers time after time. On 17 June last year a development worker employed by a private contracting firm was killed at the end of his shift because he was tired. On 10 March this year a washery plant manager was drawn between the drive wheels of a barrel washer. He had been working 12-hour shifts without a break for a significant period. On 19 March this year a service engineer was killed when he was hit by two runaway mine cars when he was walking out of the pit at the end of his shift. It is no coincidence that accidents occur when a substantial proportion of employees have worked for more than 48 hours that week--far longer than normal.

What sort of life will people living near the pits have when we have ultra- productivity and seven-day working? Every time a lorry backs up at a pit it sounds a klaxon horn, for safety reasons. Klaxon horns will be sounding all through Saturday night, and all through Sunday. What about people living within 100 yds of a pit? The people in charge will not bother about the heavy lorries, the pollution, the smoke and the dust.

Mr. Illsley : Is it not more likely that the Government will do away with the klaxon on the lorry?

Mr. Ashton : Many a true word is spoken in jest, but the klaxon is a necessary safety precaution, and people who live near the pits accept that. They put up with the noise from Monday to Thursday, although they sometimes complain that such work should not be done at night. People living in the neighbourhood of a pit put up with an enormous amount of inconvenience. They suffer because they know that their jobs are at stake, and that when the pit dies they will have no future left. That is why miners put up with those working conditions, for the sake of their kids and of their future.

When we privatise the prisons it seems that those involved can have whatever they like. When the Wolds opened people said what a wonderful prison it was because every prisoner would be able to have a clean pair of underpants every day. But we cannot find out how much that costs, who is making a profit and who is paying for it. Things are vastly different when it comes to selling off the pits. Since privatisation began, and we have done away with so many rules and regulations, one thing has stood out a mile : Lloyd's, the insurance company, has damn near gone bust. For many years Lloyd's made a massive profit, but then we suddenly had ferries going down, with the bow doors being left open because the turnround time had been speeded up when the ferries were privatised. There was the King's Cross fire, because there was no time to consider the underground safety regulations. There are football disasters too, and disasters such as that on the Piper Alpha rig have brought Lloyd's to its knees.

There will be more disasters in the mines. Driven by the great push for more and more productivity, people will take short cuts, and the insurance companies will have to

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pay. There is no reason for safety standards to be changed now, and putting implementation into the hands of managers who are under pressure to deliver productivity is a recipe for disaster.

5.48 pm

Mr. Jack Thompson (Wansbeck) : I am the first member of the mining profession to be called to speak in this debate. Although I hesitate to compete with some of my colleagues who intervened earlier and referred to their 20 years' and 21 years' experience of the industry, I can claim to have 37 years' experience of the industry, particularly on the engineering side on which I want to concentrate. That was my forte and discipline. I spent time as an electrician in the mines and then as an engineer. I had some responsibility for supervising some of my colleagues' contemporaries in the mines in which I worked.

The important issue in the debate relates to the changes to the Mines and Quarries Act 1954 as a result of the new regulations. I worked in the industry from 1944 and, even before the 1954 Act, the priority was safety. Acts of Parliament and regulations have primarily been concerned with safety. Safety was enshrined in the 1954 Act.

The new regulations change the fundamental principle, which has already been referred to, that a workman in a mine is responsible for his own safety. In certain circumstances, he could refuse to work in a part of the mine that he thought was unsafe. A miner who took that decision was never criticised and action was generally taken to improve the situation so that the workman felt confident. The new regulations make significant changes. There are seven pages of changes to the 1954 Act and the regulations contain 25 other changes and four modifications. My hon. Friend the Member for Wentworth (Mr. Hardy) referred specifically to the role of deputies. I will not follow that line, because my hon. Friend made an excellent presentation on behalf of the union members whom he represents. However, he referred to an aspect on which I want to concentrate because it is fundamental to the changes proposed by the regulations and is critical for the mines. That aspect relates to the interpretation in paragraph 2(1) which states :

"In these regulations, unless the context otherwise requires maintained' with respect to plant and equipment means maintained in relation to any matter which it is reasonably foreseeable will adversely affect the health and safety of any person in an efficient state, in efficient working order and in good repair ;"

The 1954 Act demanded that plant and equipment must be in an efficient state, in efficient working order and in good repair. That is a very important difference.

I want now to refer to my experience as an electrician in the mines, because it reflects the protection of the 1954 Act and what it did for me. At four o'clock one morning, a machine at a coal face for which I was responsible as an electrician was damaged. Its flexible cable contained a tear about 18in long--I cannot say what that is in metric terms. I believed that that tear was dangerous and that it could cause a serious accident, if not an explosion. I decided to remove the power from the machine and the cable was changed. The overman in charge of production and the under- manager on the shift were not very happy about that.

I left the mine at about 8 am and went home to bed to get some sleep. I received a message to return to the mine to have an interview with the manager. The pit manager happened to be a lay Methodist preacher. When I went to

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