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Mr. Bradley: I beg to move amendment No. 1, in page 1, line 22, leave out 'subsection' and insert 'subsections'.
The Chairman: With this, it will be convenient to discuss also amendment No. 2, in page 1, line 26, at end insert--
'(5B) For the avoidance of doubt, on a review of, or appeal against, a determination that an amount is recoverable made later than the appeal or review referred to in subsection (5A), an adjudication officer or, as the case may be, a social security appeal tribunal shall consider whether there existed grounds for the reversal or variation referred to in that subsection.'.
Mr. Bradley: This, too, is a short amendment and I shall not delay the House with too long an explanation. The purpose of the amendment is to meet the concerns expressed by Commissioner Mesher at the end of paragraph 10 of the Mustard case, where he said:
- "Requiring the decision on recoverability to be made in the course of the review decision relating to the period of the alleged overpayment . . . means that an appeal against the recoverability decision encompasses an examination of the propriety of the review decision".
Mr. Roger Evans: The argument has moved on since Commissioner Mesher's decision because of the terms in which the Bill is drafted. Commissioner Mesher was understandably worried--the force of the argument is clear--that, if everything is not done at the same time, one might be prejudiced by a later decision.
The way that it works is this: we have separated the two decisions and there is a right of appeal against each. If the half-truth comes out at the beginning of the process--if there is a review, but it is not accurate because for one reason or another either side does not know--the claimant has a right of appeal against the first decision. Let us suppose, however, that it is not right--perhaps there has been an argument, or facts have emerged during the following month or so. There will be a second review of the original review decision, and that also will be appealable.
In effect, if someone is shocked by a thumping great bill some months later, when the overpayment decision is made, there may well be grounds for review if there is a basis of fact that has developed or moved on, and there can, of course, be a further appeal on the second review.
The matter is dealt with in that fashion in the Bill, and I urge the hon. Gentleman not to press the amendment.
Mr. Bradley:
I thank the Minister for that explanation. As he rightly says, the Bill has been framed to ensure that
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 1 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clauses 2 and 3 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Bill reported, without amendment.
Bill read the Third time, and passed.
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Morris):
With the leave of the House, I shall put together the motions relating to delegated legislation.
Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 101(6) (Standing Committees on Delegated Legislation),
Mr. Deputy Speaker:
With the leave of the House, I shall put together the motions relating to deregulation.
Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 14A(1)(a) (Consideration of draft deregulation orders),
Mr. Martin O'Neill (Clackmannan):
I am pleased to present what has become known as the snowdrop petition--they were the only flowers in bloom on 13 March when 16 children and their teacher were gunned down in central Scotland. The extent to which that tragedy has touched the heart of the nation and of our people can be measured by the fact that some 705,000 people had signed up to the petition by yesterday. It reads:
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.--[Dr. Liam Fox.]
Mr. Jeremy Corbyn (Islington, North):
The subject that I want to raise is child labour and the employment of children in the United Kingdom. I am sure that you will recognise, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that that is an extremely important and sensitive issue, and one that concerns large numbers of people, not just in this country but throughout the world. There is also concern about purchasing products produced by child labour in other countries.
First, I must put it on record that I am the chair of the British committee of the International Campaign Against Child Labour. It is a totally unremunerated position--indeed, it probably costs money, but that is not the point. I should also place on record the thanks of many people for the work done by Anti-Slavery International to expose the problems of child labour in many parts of the world, but also in Britain.
Most members of the public assume that child labour is a problem of the past. They think of children going up chimneys in Oliver Twist, or of Dickensian England. Possibly, they think of those tragic children in southern India, who are weaving carpets for 10 hours a day, or of the bonded labour in Pakistan and so many other places.
It is true that child labour was an enormous problem in Victorian Britain. Indeed, many of the great struggles to develop free state education were conducted in the teeth of opposition from farmers in many parts of the country, who wanted children to work on their farms because they were cheap or virtually free. One of the motivations behind the Burston school strike in Norfolk in the 1920s was that it was in opposition to farmers who wanted children to pick stones off fields rather than attend lessons.
While the problem has changed a great deal, it has not disappeared. There is a secret illegal work force in Britain that deserves to be highlighted. One does not have to go to the third world to find out what is happening. Here in London, children are working illegally. They are doing so obviously, by washing car windscreens and so forth at junctions, but they are also doing so illegally in clothing factories, bakeries and many other places, where they are dreadfully exploited and exposed to extremely dangerous conditions. They are also working as waiters and shop assistants and delivering milk, papers and the like. Those issues have to be brought to the attention of the House, and I will come to some of the things that the Government can and should do about the problem.
In a recent report, a group of psychologists at the university of Paisley, who have done much work on the subject, estimated that from 1.1 million to 1.7 million pupils in the 11 to 15-year-old age group are engaged in employment. That report demonstrates--it is the widest study undertaken to date--that that is not a minority experience for pre-16-year-olds. The group questioned 2,000 pupils in 22 schools in Scotland and the north of England, and found that between 35 and 50 per cent. of the pupils had jobs, and as many as 70 per cent. had had jobs at some time.
Despite the fact that almost all jobs require a child to have a work permit issued by the local education authority, the Paisley study finds that nine out of 10 of the children are employed illegally, and that their average pay is £1.50 an hour. Some earn as little as 50p an hour.
In Britain, particularly in areas of high unemployment, we seem almost to be mirroring what is happening in the third world, where adults cannot gain employment but children can, because their wage rates are so low and they are easier to exploit as a result.
The Paisley study also found that some children started work at about 4 am and worked for several hours before going to school, even though it is illegal for children to work before 7 am. One third of the children interviewed in the Paisley study said that that had happened to them. A total of 20 per cent. of the pupils questioned in Strathclyde, Dumfries and Galloway worked more than 10 hours a week, although it is illegal for children to do that, starting at the times I have mentioned.
I want to put these problems before the House. The accident and health risks for children are serious, and there is a double bind in this. Not only are children seriously at risk when they are working early in the morning and late at night, but they are also working illegally. Therefore, the employer is unlikely to want to report any accident. They are not covered automatically by health and safety legislation, and are exposed to the most appalling dangers as a result.
A study by the Low Pay Unit found that one in three working children had been involved in accidents of that kind, and that 27 per cent. of children working in the service sector have reported being hurt at some time.
My hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley (Mrs. Clwyd) has produced a report on child labour. She cited cases of children aged between 12 and 15 who were killed or seriously injured at work. Where prosecutions followed, the fines were often low. Her report cites two cases in which boys of seven and eight were working on a building site, and another in which school-age children were working a fourteen-and-a-half-hour day sorting rags for £1 an hour.
One can see the advantage to the employer of employing children at £1 an hour when he would have to pay considerably more for adults. It underlines the case both for a national minimum wage in this country and for much greater labour regulation, not less. Sadly, in the case of those children, the Health and Safety Executive did not prosecute.
An even more shocking case is that of a Birmingham 15-year-old, Dean Allsop, who died because he wore no mask and was overcome by intoxicating fumes when he fell into a vat of water in a sheet metal finishing factory. Another case is that of the 14-year-old Watford boy who was killed when he fell under the wheels of an oncoming car just yards from the flower stall that he was running. These issues are present in factories, and on building sites, farms and other places around this country.
When one mentions child labour, people usually say that it is all about trying to stop children doing paper rounds, and that such paper rounds do not do them any harm. I did a paper round on a Sunday as an older child. Most children are glad of the money, but when one looks back, one sees that there are serious questions about the safety and exploitation of young children.
The physical damage that can be inflicted is quite serious. In 1988, the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy, which is affiliated to the Trades Union Congress, exposed the risk of spinal deformity that can be caused to paper boys and girls as a result of carrying heavy loads in poorly designed bags, which push their spines out of alignment. Children's loads are not set by law in the way they are for adult workers.
For example, a 17-year-old postal worker should not be carrying more than 40 lb of mail. Some children delivering papers, particularly Sunday papers which tend to be bulkier than daily papers, are sometimes carrying as much as 70 lb at the start of the paper round. I would consider that heavy for many adults. It would probably be beyond the capability of many hon. Members to carry that weight, yet children are doing that, and the damage caused in the early part of their round is considerable.
Tragically, safety in our society has diminished a great deal over the years. One must have serious regard for the safety of children, particularly in London and the big cities. As somebody who grew up in the country, I find it shocking that one can barely let one's children go out of the front door to go a hundre yards down the road to a shop without being concerned for their safety. Children undertaking paper rounds have been subjected to assault, sexual attack and violence, as well as facing the problems of traffic accidents and general safety.
Earlier this year, a tribunal on the world problem of child labour was held in Mexico. Mike Calvert, who was representing the British committee, presented evidence in which he said:
The TUC has done a great deal of work on this. It is concerned not just for the safety of children, but for the way in which children provide employers with cheap and flexible workers. The TUC document said:
Convention 138 clearly states that the minimum age for entry into employment should be the age of completion for compulsory education. Exceptionally, a country with insufficient economic and educational development may initially specify 14 years. That could not be said to apply to the United Kingdom. The Government purport to support the work of the ILO on child labour in developing countries, but they reject criticism of their record.
They are firmly opposed to a human rights clause in international trade agreements, which would link access to the global market to effective measures to eliminate bonded child labour. The most serious abuses of working children are generally dealt with under ILO convention 29. The TUC document states the nub of many of the problems.
Although this is a debate about child labour in the United Kingdom, it is difficult to limit it to the United Kingdom, for a number of reasons. As I have mentioned, working children provide a cheap and relatively docile source of labour. It is an advantage to an employer in Britain to be able to employ children, and it is an even bigger advantage in many third-world countries.
In some African countries, over 50 per cent. of children are working. In South America, 5 million children are working, and in Asia an estimated 44 million children are working. The worst offenders are Mali, Burkina Faso, Burundi, East Timor, Uganda, Ethiopia, Senegal, Bangladesh and Nigeria--many of the world's poorest nations.
When workers in Britain legitimately complain about job losses and manufacturers moving overseas, they complain about imported goods being produced by child labour. Those companies alleged to be producing goods by child labour usually say that no children work in their factories. That may well be true of their own factories. The sports shoe manufacturing industry is keen to point out that no children work in its factories. The problem is that it sub-contracts work to outstations which do employ children.
If we are to deal with the problem of child labour, it is not a matter of punishing the children for undertaking the work, or even, in some cases, of punishing the parents, who may be driven by terrible poverty; rather, it is a matter for international regulation and the implementation of the ILO convention.
Last year's Trades Union Congress passed a resolution in support of the ILO convention, and asked Governments to translate into practical actions their commitment to ratify ILO convention 138, which I strongly support. I hope that the British Government are prepared to declare their support for that, and to look more seriously at the regulation of the labour market in order to control the safety of children.
British legislation also creates some problems. When I started researching the issue, I discovered that the Employment of Children Act, a private Member's Bill, was passed by the House in 1973 during the Government of the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Sir E. Heath). That Act has never been put into operation. It sought to regulate child labour, prevent young children from working, and establish various other conditions concerning rest, maximum hours, and so on. It is shocking that such legislation could be passed more than 20 years ago, yet never be put into operation. I hope that the Minister will explain why that has been the case.
The Department of Health issued a consultation document, which I understand attracted a number of responses, although I have no idea exactly how many, which was based on the new EC directive on child labour. Some of those who read that document found it rather disturbing. When I asked a parliamentary question on the subject, I was told that there were no plans to publish the responses to that document. I hope that the Minister will change his mind tonight, and tell us that all the responses will be published. If he does, that will be fine; if not, the only conclusion that can be drawn is that the replies were unsympathetic and hostile to the EC directive and the Government's position.
The Guardian, in an article on 22 May this year, said:
The Government are seeking an opt-out from parts of the EC directive, but even that is limited, because it does not outlaw the employment of children in the way that the ILO convention suggests. As a result, the British position is even worse, because Britain believes that children should be working even longer hours than the EC directive states.
Britain has the beginnings of a serious problem. Child labour is disgraceful. Children should be able to grow up in a happy atmosphere, in which they can learn without the stress of knowing that, after school or early in the morning, they have a job to go to because of their family's poverty. Those things were wrong in the 19th century, as many hon. Members would have said in this Chamber 100 years ago, and they are doubly wrong today, when we have the resources to eliminate child labour altogether.
I conclude by quoting from the Anti-Slavery International appeal for action on child employment in the United Kingdom. It is headed:
When I recently asked the Secretary of State
Even more shocking is the fact that there is apparently no central collection of statistics showing how many children have suffered from accidents, or of the work done, or not done, by local authorities. The Government have all the appearance of wanting to have nothing to do with the problem. They hope that it will go away, and that someone else will deal with it.
That the Special Grant Report on Community Care Special Grant and Supplementary Mismatch Scheme Grant for 1996-97, which was laid before this House on 10th June, be approved.
That the Landfill Tax (Qualifying Material) Order 1996 (S.I., 1996, No. 1528), dated 12th June 1996, a copy of which was laid before this House on 12th June, be approved.
That the draft European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (Further Payments to Capital Stock) Order 1996, which was laid before this House on 17th June, be approved.--[Dr. Liam Fox.]
Question agreed to.
That the draft Deregulation (Building) (Initial Notices and Final Certificates) Order 1996, which was laid before this House on 17th June, be approved.
Question agreed to.
PETITION
That the draft Deregulation (Wireless Telegraphy) Order 1996, which was laid before this House on 4th June, be approved.--[Dr. Liam Fox.]
6.44 pm
Wherefore your Petitioners pray that your honourable House introduce or amend the law relating to the ownership and usage of firearms such that:--
To lie upon the Table.
1. All firearms held for recreational purposes for use in authorised sporting clubs to be held securely at such clubs with firing mechanisms removed.
2. The private ownership of handguns be made illegal.
3. Certification of all firearms be subject to stricter control.
And your Petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray, etc.
6.45 pm
"It is estimated that in Britain 2 million children under school leaving age work for wages of around $1 or $1.30 an hour."
He translated the figure for the tribunal. He went on:
"The general demand of British workers is for £4.15 per hour. One then clearly understands that child labour stands as one of the main means to deregulate the labour market and reduce the cost".
We should also remember that, in 1899, the founding conference of the TUC said:
"The time has come for the British Empire to stop building itself on children's hearts".
The hearts of children now are those to whom I have referred, who have suffered accident and injury because of excessive work early in the morning and late in the evening.
"Children provide employers with cheap and flexible workers who often don't know their rights. Children have always worked and there are a huge variety of reasons why. In poorer families the child's wages may be very important to family income--and growing poverty in Britain makes that more likely."
The TUC document goes on to say:
"According to the Low Pay Unit, one in three working children have been involved in accidents."
The document also mentions the report produced by my hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley, and explains the dangers of the weight being carried by children. It goes on to call for legislation and ratification of International Labour Organisation convention 138, which is at the heart of the debate and my arguments.
"Britain has opted out of key provisions of the EU directive, rejecting a 12-hour weekly limit on children's term-time working in favour of a limit of 17 hours for 13 and 14-year-olds and 20 hours for 15-year-olds. Uniquely in Europe, Britain will also exclude 16 and 17-year-olds from any restrictions on the hours they can work."
Many families in my constituency are extremely hard up. They are keen for their children to stay on at school past the age of 16 in order to obtain A-levels, go on to college and so on, but they simply cannot make ends meet. Insufficient money is available through the social security system, and in many cases children work such excessive hours that their studies are damaged. Children under the age of 16 also work more than they should because their parents cannot get work, so they too are part of the problem.
"The British Government is planning changes to the law affecting the employment of school-age children, which will worsen their school performance and provide cheap labour to businesses trading on a Sunday."
It says:
"ASI is concerned that school-age children in the UK are still not adequately protected from exploitation under UK law, and that the Government has not given serious consideration to the impact on children of working long hours while still at school. UK laws on child labour need revision, need to be applied and need to conform with the UK's international commitments. If the current proposals become law many more school-age children in Britain will be working even longer hours during term-time at the expense of their education and childhood."
We have the power to do something about child labour. Legislation exists. We have the ILO convention 138, ratification of which in its entirety would help to eliminate child labour.
"what actions are being taken by his Department to ensure that children are not working in breach of the current employment law"--
that was a question to the British Government, who are responsible for the enactment of legislation and the protection of British people--the answer took less than one line. It said:
"Enforcement of the law in this area is a matter for local authorities."--[Official Report, 26 June 1996; Vol. 280, c. 146.]
Local authorities often lack the resources and expertise to deal with the matter. In some cases, they may lack the will to deal with it. All the battles to develop free education in Britain 100 years ago in the teeth of opposition from employers who were busy exploiting children at the time might be rerun today because some local authorities might not be too keen on investigating clothing companies, newspaper deliveries and other employments in which children are working excessively and in great danger.
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