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Mr. Mans: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
The Minister for Construction, Planning and Energy Efficiency (Mr. Robert B. Jones): I beg to move, to leave out from "House" to the end of the Question and to add instead thereof:
- 'welcomes the Government's commitment to maintaining standards of health and safety at work whilst removing unnecessary burdens on business; endorses the Health and Safety Commission and Executive's role of assisting and encouraging business in its duty to assess risk and take action accordingly; and approves the rigorous approach which the Government takes to improving efficiency and effectiveness in all areas of public service.'.
As always, I listened with interest to the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher). Even for a Labour party that habitually resorts to the use of stolen or leaked documents to prosecute its case, this was a strange record, based as it was on a letter that was never agreed or sent, much less received by Ministers. It is extraordinary that the Opposition motion fails to mention so many things that are much more relevant to the debate than gossip and tittle-tattle.
In quoting in the motion a figure of more than 30,000 deaths and major injuries, the Opposition are insensitively grouping about 30,000 major injuries and the deaths of381 employees, self-employed people and members of the public. I do not believe for a moment that those figures are to be taken lightly. The Opposition motion fails to mention that the HSE has reduced the number of fatal injuries to employees by more than half since 1981. The number of major injuries has fallen by more than 15 per cent. since 1986-87. It fails to mention that the number of injuries to employees and to the self-employed involving three or more days off work has fallen by more than 21,000 since 1986-87. Since 1979, the HSE has presided over a steady fall in the number of work-related accidents and fatalities. The fatal injury rate for employees is at an all-time low--about a third of what it was in the early 1970s.
Mr. Meacher:
Will the Minister accept that that is because the old, traditional industries, which were far and away the most dangerous, have many fewer people working for them? Bearing in mind also the huge increase in the number of safer and smaller premises, will he accept that there has been no reduction in either fatalities or major accidents?
Mr. Jones:
No, I do not accept that. We should compare the rate of accidents per 100,000 employees and, on that basis, there have been large improvements across the board. We should not be judged, as the hon. Gentleman believes, according to some bogus measure of how much is spent: we should be judged according to our achievements.
As the hon. Gentleman was a member of the last Labour Government, I propose to compare their achievements--or lack thereof--with ours. I remind the House that in 1978 the fatal injury rate was 2.2 per 100,000 workers. It is now 0.9--the lowest level on record. In the construction industry--a sector in which I worked during the last Labour Government's period in office--there were 12.2 fatal injuries per 100,000 workers. That figure is now 6.2--the lowest level on record. Under the last Labour Government, the figure for the railways--an industry to which the hon. Gentleman has devoted much time--was 19.7 per 100,000 workers. That compares with 7.7 fatal injuries per 100,000 workers in that industry under the Conservative Government. The 19.7 figure was an increase from 18.7, which was the level when Labour took office.
Mr. Michael J. Martin (Glasgow, Springburn):
In referring to the construction industry, is the Minister including in his figures any injuries involving714 operators?
Mr. Jones:
I am citing the figures for employees in the construction industry. I shall come to the self-employed in a moment, as it is a relevant point. The last Labour Government did not compile figures regarding the number of major injuries to members of the public--it took a Conservative Government to publish those. That is another step forward.
The Government should be judged also on our comparison with Europe and the world. According to the Health and Safety Executive, the number of deaths per 100,000 employees in the United Kingdom is half that of Germany, less than half the level in Italy, a third of the level in France, a quarter of the level in the United States and one seventh of the level in Spain. The number of injuries follows a similar pattern.
The Government have made abundantly clear many times our commitment to maintaining all necessary standards of health and safety protection for workers and for the public. I do not propose to take any lessons from Labour Members, given their appalling record. All those involved must play their part in ensuring that those standards are effective in the workplace. That is a clear principle of the Health and Safety at Work, etc. Act 1974. It is not just a matter for the Government or for purely specialist interests, such as the Health and Safety Commission or the Health and Safety Executive: it is the responsibility of every employer and employee.
Earlier today, in discussion with the hon. Member for Makerfield (Mr. McCartney), I referred to the fact that accidents occur because people are stupid. He subsequently issued a press release denouncing me for that comment.I make it perfectly clear: if it were not for stupid people--whether they are employers, employees or members of the public--the accident rate today would be much lower. That is common sense.
Mr. Ian McCartney (Makerfield):
The Minister may wriggle and try to reinterpret his remarks, but his statement was totally insensitive. He was trying to find an excuse for why employees are killed and maimed at work. It ill behoves him to say that the 135 people who died on Piper Alpha were stupid.
Mr. Jones:
There is nothing wrong with saying that people often cause accidents through stupidity. If we were
Mr. Jones:
The hon. Gentleman is correct. That is why the purpose of the Health and Safety Executive is to assess where those risks are likely to arise and to devote its efforts to preventing them.
Mr. Meacher:
Is the Minister aware that a previous HSE report about fatal accidents concluded that about 70 per cent. of accidents were the result of inadequate safety management? That is a very different picture from the extremely inappropriate and undesirable one that the Minister is portraying.
Mr. Jones:
I am relying on the Health and Safety Executive's study of accidents at work, which showed that almost three quarters were preventable either by management or by workers. Someone slipped up; someone was stupid. That is true not only of accidents at work but of those in the home and in the community.
The Government's role is clear: we must ensure that the legal framework is correct. Our basic legal framework is envied the world over. It sets goals that business must achieve; it does not tie firms up in details and prescriptive rules that quickly become out of date and therefore worse than useless. It focuses attention on risk and it promotes a response that is proportionate to that risk--tight controls if the risk is high, and a common-sense approach if the risk is slight.
I shall give one example of the impact of effective control. On the advice of the HSC, we introduced regulations requiring that helmets be worn on construction sites. A survey conducted afterwards estimated that those regulations alone reduced the number of fatal accidents by 41 per cent. and the number of major injuries by 22 per cent. To put it another way, 20 lives were saved every year. That is a significant improvement.
The Government are ensuring that our legal framework will work even better. In 1992, we asked the Health and Safety Commission to review all health and safety law--the biggest review of such law since the Robens report. We wanted to know whether it was still relevant to the risks faced by workers and the public. The Commission--which, I remind Opposition Members, includes members of the Trades Union Congress--found that 40 per cent. of health and safety law affecting the generality of business could be repealed as it was unnecessary.
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