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Mr. Etherington: No one tonight has mentioned the fact behind the Robens committee that led to the 1974 Act. The committee was set up as part of our obligations to the European Community under the treaty of Rome, and led to one of the biggest advances in safety legislation in this country. One or two hon. Members have said tonight that the EC is all negative. Safety legislation was one area in which Britain had a little catching up to do, and I was grateful that the 1974 Act achieved it.
Mr. Butler: I have waited for many things since I was elected in April 1992, and one of them has been to be able to agree with the hon. Gentleman. Although I agree with him, the Bill was still a Conservative piece of legislation, which was picked up and passed, with minor amendments, by the incoming Labour Government. I hope never to see an incoming Labour Government.
I represented companies that were prosecuted by the Health and Safety Executive and also represented injured individuals whose employers were subsequently prosecuted. I always found the Health and Safety Executive very reasonable and extraordinarily fair and helpful. It did not drop any of its cases against my clients, so my comment is not self-serving.
Every accident could have been avoided; that is certainly true. Unfortunately, it does not follow from that that we can guarantee an accident-free future, because the future never exactly replicates the past. I dealt with cases as diverse, for example, as a man whose legs were crushed by a fore-loader, a man who was killed as a result of electrocution from an overhead power line where the proper safety regulations had not been applied, and a child who was injured by a bursting balloon which ripped the skin from the eyeball.
I also dealt with a matter that may ring a bell with my hon. Friend the Minister for Construction, Planning and Energy Efficiency which involved an act of stupidity.
In the basement of a house that was being rebuilt, the employer ran an electric cable down a steel pipe which was thus used as a conduit. The employer painted it red and hung signs on it, but that did not prevent an employee from taking an angle grinder and cutting through it until he was electrocuted and, unfortunately, killed. To be fair to the Minister, it is true to say that stupidity, regrettably, often plays a part. It is no good pretending otherwise if we are to take the subject seriously.
I would like to see a world in which there are no prosecutions under health and safety at work legislation because there is no need to have any, as a result of there being no accidents and as a result of everybody taking the proper precautions. On that basis, I again reject the Opposition's contention that, if there are not enough prosecutions, it must prove that the resources are inadequate and that the effort is lacking. I do not accept that at all.
I move now to a point that is common ground--the habit of safety, which is extraordinarily important and which starts in schools and in the home. I would like to praise the work of Hazard Alley in Milton Keynes. Schoolchildren can see, set up in a building, home situations, road situations and work situations. They can see apparent accidents happening and as they watch, unexpected things happen. It can be quite a traumatic experience. I have spoken to many children who have visited Hazard Alley--my own children have been there--and have found that without exception, they are impressed and alerted to the fact that safety is not only their shared responsibility, but something that is not guaranteed.
I have already said that hidden, slightly deceitfully, in the Opposition motion is the fact that fewer than400 people were killed at work last year, although that is almost 400 too many. In the same year, just under 4,000 people were killed in accidents in the home; it is right to keep those figures in proportion. I commend Hazard Alley and similar schemes that are springing up elsewhere.
As the habit of safety grows, it is surely no more than common sense that the Health and Safety Executive should re-prioritise. As the habit of safety grows, there is no need to do some of the basic work that used to be necessary. There is now an accepted view that safety is everybody's duty, not just the employer's. It is not sufficient to have in place wonderful systems that no one follows, which mean that when the HSE visits, the employer can produce the booklet, the leaflet, the follow-up and the committee minutes. Nor is it just a matter of the employee's duty. Hon. Members have referred to the Victorian employer who takes people on, does not care about their safety and leaves it up to them, and who believes that, if there is an accident, it is the employee's fault. Safety is the duty of the employer and the employee, and it is also the duty of all of us.
From my experience as a director of a safety company, I know that the customer's interest is no longer what used to be called CATNIP--the cheapest available technology not involving prosecution. That used to be the case some years ago, but the interest now is, "How safe and efficient can I as an employer become?" or "How safe and efficient can I as an employee become at my place of work?" The House would commend and wish to support that as fully as possible.
If the Opposition motion was right about the need
which should be "which"--
we would all support it. However, the deregulation proposals do not threaten health and safety standards and will not threaten them.
I pray in aid the fact that the deregulatory proposals come from the Health and Safety Commission, which in 1993-94 conducted a review of health and safety legislation with the aim of simplifying and clarifying the law. The proposals were intended to reduce the burdens on business, especially on small firms, but at the same time to improve enforcement practice. That comprehensive review recommended that about100 regulations and seven pieces of primary legislation not only could, but should, be removed; that there should be new simplified regulations for reporting accidents--that comes into effect at the end of this week; several measures to reduce the sheer drudgery of paperwork; an enforcement policy statement to ensure consistent enforcement by local authorities--many hon. Members will have experienced one local authority taking one view and the neighbouring authority another; and a complete review of the commission's guidance documents, which hon. Members will be interested to know amounted to650 separate publications. That review is under way.
Mr. Michael J. Martin (Glasgow, Springburn):
Hon. Members have talked about private industry and nationalised industry. I do not care what industry an individual works for; every man, woman or young person going out to do an honest day's work should be given every opportunity to work in a safe and healthy environment. That is not happening in every industry.
I was fortunate enough in the 1960s to get an apprenticeship as a metal worker. I worked in engineering until I came into the House. I remember looking forward to the day that I went into the factory. It was a great experience for me. It was not long--it was in the first few weeks--before I realised that working for a living in engineering was dangerous. The eyes of people who stood too near the electric welder were damaged by ultraviolet rays. People who worked at the guillotine without due care and attention could easily lose fingers. Some of my fellow apprentices were damaged by working with such machinery. Spot-welders could have their hands burned and scarred. Sometimes, young apprentices were required by the employer to carry weights that 15 or 16-year-olds should not have lifted. That happens today in our factories.
The women in our factory were exposed to chemicals that gave them dermatitis. There was vermin infestation that meant that, if sandwiches were left in the wrong place, they could be eaten or tampered with by rats or mice, and that people went without decent food that day.
I remember working with asbestos. As a young apprentice, I thought that it was better to work with asbestos because it gave off only a white powder instead of the oily metals that clung to our clothes. Little did I know that I was not only endangering my health but that my mother could have easily inhaled asbestos dust when I took my boiler suit home.
Hon. Members who understand the dangers of inhaling asbestos know that asbestosis manifests itself 20 or 30 years after inhalation. The Thatcher era saw the decline of engineering and the closure of many factories. I hope that the Minister can give an assurance to the men and women who are only now showing the signs of having inhaled asbestos. Because of liquidation or bankruptcy, many of their former employers are no longer around. Some mischievous employers have even changed their addresses, so as deliberately to stall claims arising from asbestosis.
As the Minister knows, few doctors will conclusively state when they examine someone for a post mortem, that the man or woman died from asbestos inhalation. That means that claims can often be lost because the family does not have on the death certificate the fact that the person died of asbestosis. It might be argued that the person died of heart failure, kidney failure or whatever. I feel strongly that, in view of all the factory closures, people experiencing asbestosis now should still be able to claim from their old employers.
Some hon. Members have talked about how death rates and accident rates have dropped. I do not have the statistics before me, but I have some common sense, and that tells me that, when 3 million men and women are sitting at home not working in factories or on construction sites, there are bound to be 3 million fewer people being exposed to the problems that employment brings with it. It is all very well for Conservative Members to say that the number of injuries and deaths has dropped, but they must also realise that an awful lot of people do not have a job.
Much has been said about the construction industry. When I was elected to the House in 1979, the vast majority of people in the construction industry had an employer, but nowadays joiners, slaters, plasterers, electricians and the practitioners of every other trade on the building site are 714 operators. When the Minister starts quoting statistics he must know that many of the 714 operators do not report injuries sustained on the building site.
We all know that, when an injury is sustained--back strain or a bone injury, perhaps--the damage may not be noticed until a few months later. There may be no report of an injury on the day, yet the worker, who may be on another building site by then, or even out of work, may suffer from it three or four months later.
"to reverse deregulation initiatives that"--
"threaten health and safety standards",
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