| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
Jim Sheridan (West Renfrewshire) (Lab): My hon. Friend talks about directors' legal responsibilities, but does he agree that directors have moral responsibilities—particularly those Members of Parliament who have lucrative directorships? Would it not be helpful if they took the lead and supported the Bill?
Mr. Hepburn: I think that there would be a conflict of interest, but I appreciate my hon. Friend's statement and I agree with him entirely.
At present, the Government rely on a voluntary code. Although the code is laudable, as it was drafted by the Health and Safety Commission—excellent—it is not working. It is worthless. Fewer than half the companies in this country report health and safety issues to their boards, so thousands of companies are ignoring the HSC's voluntary code of conduct.
Mr. Tony Clarke (Northampton, South) (Lab): On companies not taking seriously health and safety matters, does my hon. Friend agree that it is an outrage that, when the HSE considered the amount of time that directors spent at board meetings discussing health and safety, it found that more than 50 per cent. of companies had not discussed health and safety in the past three years? Is that not the crux of what we are trying to do? We want to make them responsible not just for their staff, but for discussing health and safety issues at part of their everyday business.
Mr. Hepburn: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. This is a very simple Bill: all we are trying to do is bring health and safety responsibilities and awareness into the boardroom, so that the controlling minds of the company can make a real difference.
Mr. Dismore: Following the previous intervention, I wonder whether my hon. Friend has had the opportunity to look at the Government's response to the Select Committee on Work and Pension's report on the HSC's and HSE's work, where the Government say that an estimated one in six organisations in which boards do not provide such direction or take such responsibility have no plans to do so either.
Mr. Hepburn: My hon. Friend makes a very good point that epitomises the Bill. The purpose of the Bill is to bring health and safety into the boardroom, where the controlling minds of the company are found, thus putting such issues at the forefront of business to safeguard workers.
Tens of thousands of companies are ignoring the Government's recommendations that they should adopt and comply with the voluntary code. Let us make no
4 Mar 2005 : Column 1197
bones about it. Even if every company in this country—there are about 3.7 million of them—signed up to the voluntary code, it still would not be worth the paper that it is written on, because at the end of the day, it is not backed up by law. A prosecution can never be brought against a director for negligence if it is backed by a voluntary code. The voluntary code needs to be backed up by the law of the land.
Last year, one person died every day in this country because of a workplace accident. I happen to be involved in the construction industry. I am a member of UCATT—the construction trade union—and I worked in construction some years ago. The construction industry accounts for about 7 per cent. of the work force in this country, yet it accounts for 30 per cent. of deaths in the workplace. That is absolutely disgraceful.
My hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) mentioned employers' organisations and the CBI's warm support for health and safety matters. The Construction Confederation—the employers' organisation—has expressed support for the Bill's principles. It said that the Bill would "reinforce corporate accountability" and
That is our purpose: we are here today to bring that about.
We are all aware of the headline-grabbing, tragic incidents and accidents that have happened in this country in the recent past: the King's Cross fire, where 31 people died; the Southall rail crash, where seven died; the Paddington rail crash, where 31 died; the Hatfield rail crash where seven died; and the Potters Bar rail crash, where seven died.
Jonathan Shaw (Chatham and Aylesford) (Lab): May I add to my hon. Friend's list the Herald of Free Enterprise incident, where 188 people died? This Sunday, its 18th anniversary memorial service will take place in Dover. I know that the relatives and survivors of that incident will be pleased to hear his words and support the Bill.
Mr. Hepburn: I appreciate my hon. Friend's comments and his thoughts on that tragic incident.
I gave the headline incidents, but every day of the week a worker dies in the workplace. Those people do not make the headlines.
Mr. Michael Clapham (Barnsley, West and Penistone) (Lab):
The statistics show the devastating effect of work on ordinary people's lives, but another aspect is the way in which many people's health is affected by exposure to a variety of things, in particular asbestos. My hon. Friend worked in the construction industry, where asbestos was used widely. We know that at least 83 people die each week as a result of cancers or chest diseases that have been caused by exposure to asbestos. As a result of one of the latest studies, we know that the number of people who are likely to die between 2000 and 2050 as a result of exposure to asbestos is 186,000 in the UK alone, yet we have had legislation since 1974. He referred to section 37 of the 1974 Act, and it is clear that
4 Mar 2005 : Column 1198
that has not worked, because many people were exposed negligently to asbestos after 1974. The Bill is important because it would tackle that problem.
Mr. Hepburn: I thank my hon. Friend for his comments and for his work on health and safety in exposing consistently the problems that workers face.
I mentioned the headline incidents, which are tragedies, but every week the number of workplace deaths add up to another Hatfield rail crash and every month the number of workplace deaths add up to another King's Cross fire. Rather than talking about the statistics, however, we should talk about the people: mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, loved ones and individuals. One of my constituents, Mr. Tom King, an elderly gentleman, came to see me. His only son went to work on an oil rig in Scotland and died in a tragic accident. He has explored every channel and gone down every path, and I have tried my best, but without justice. The sheriff at the Scottish fatal accident inquiry into the case of Richard King said that it was inexcusable that no individual had been prosecuted. In the light of that, how can anyone oppose such a simple Bill?
Since launching the Bill, I have spoken to many families and they have the same stories and tragedies to relate. We met some at a reception in Parliament last night. Simon Jones's mother, Anne Jones, gave a heartbreaking story about the trauma that she has suffered. We come across such stories every day.
Harry Cohen (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab): I was at that reception and the relatives of people who had died had terrible stories to tell. Did my hon. Friend also discover the shocking fact that inquests are not held? Although the law is not properly in place to hold directors to account for health and safety problems, the bureaucracy goes through the process of considering the law as it is and, after years, nothing is done and directors are not prosecuted. In the meantime, inquests are not held, and it might take years until they are. That is not justice for the families. Did he hear about that from the relatives?
Mr. Hepburn: Absolutely. Part of the Bill's purpose is to bring justice to families by closing the justice gap. At the moment, families that have suffered tragedies cannot get justice. People come to see me and other Members of Parliament because their loved ones were killed in accidents that were later proven to be preventable. They see negligent directors escaping the law. Families have been broken emotionally and financially by their pursuit of justice, which they have never been able to get. If there are still doubters, they just have to read Mr. Justice Scott Baker's comments on the 1997 Southall rail crash. He said:
The HSE says that 70 per cent. of workplace deaths and injuries were caused by management failures. The logical step is to assume that they could have been prevented. That is why the Work and Pensions Committee, on which Opposition Members serve, recommended legally binding duties on company directors. It studied the evidence and facts, considered
4 Mar 2005 : Column 1199
the figures and interviewed the experts, and came up with that independent view. The report says that legally binding duties on directors would have a positive impact on the current levels of preventable workplace deaths and injuries. Unfortunately, the Government rejected that advice. I hope that in the light of this debate and the debate that has been going on around the country since that report was published, the Labour Government go back to the 2000 commitment to introduce legally binding duties.
The Bill is about preventing deaths in the workplace. It would also make economic sense. About 38 million working days were lost last year as a result of deaths and injuries in the workplace. That makes no sense to the individual who is injured, because he loses his wages. It makes no sense to the country, which has to pay benefits and sick pay. It makes no sense to the company, which loses out on both productivity, because that worker is off, and subsequent profits that that worker would create. The Bill would create a level playing field between those decent companies that comply with the voluntary code and those rogue operators that do not. Surely it is a good economic argument to raise everyone's standards up to that attained by decent companies, rather than lowering standards down to those of the spivs.
The Bill has given rise to many myths about red tape, bureaucracy and placing extra duties on directors. I cannot see that happening and nor can the Government. They are telling all companies to abide by the voluntary code, although companies do not seem to care to do it. If that is not red tape today, it would not be red tape tomorrow if it became the law of the land. Someone might say that extra responsibilities and duties would be placed on directors, but they already have responsibilities. They have legal burdens for finance because they have to return their tax and VAT forms. They have legal burdens because of equal opportunities law and the Freedom of Information Act 2000. Why then, when we talk about saving people's lives in the workplace, do people talk about placing legal burdens on company directors?
The Government's promised draft Bills have been mentioned. Draft Bills on corporate manslaughter and company law reform are due to be introduced later this year after a process of negotiation. Although any improvement in health and safety is welcome, it does not go far enough to address the problem. Even the Government say in their press release on the draft Bill on corporate manslaughter that it
All the proposed corporate law reform would do is codify existing commercial duties to shareholders, customers, clients, creditors and suppliers—everyone at the bottom of the balance sheet—but it mentions nothing about the worker and health and safety.
My Bill is simple. It makes two proposals and would not go as far as the voluntary code of conduct, which the Government urge companies to take on. It takes in only points 2 and 5 of that code. First, the Bill would place a legally binding duty on all company directors. That would be a general duty to take reasonable steps to
4 Mar 2005 : Column 1200
ensure that companies comply with the health and safety law of the land. How simple. Those reasonable steps would not be outlined by the Government; they would be handed over to the Health and Safety Executive. Nobody could say that the Government's hands were all over business. There would be no extra regulation. The HSE could sort out the code of conduct—between directors' and non-executive directors' roles, for example.
Secondly, the Bill would require the appointment of a health and safety information director in a large company. Why a large company? Small and medium-sized companies might have only two or three directors whose roles are pretty transparent—they all tend to be hands on, everybody knows what is going on and they are traceable in a trail of events—but large companies might have up to 50 directors. As we have seen in the aftermath of some of the headline-grabbing disasters, one director of a large company might not always let another know what is going on. The job of an information director would be to spread health and safety information throughout the company to ensure that every director knew what was going on.
An information director would inform the other directors of the measures that needed to be taken for the company to comply with health and safety legislation and of any health and safety failures, and would ensure that any deaths and injuries in the workplace were reported to the board of directors. It is quite simple: an individual would disseminate information to directors throughout a company so that, in the event of disasters and tragedies such as those we have seen, nobody could say, "Well, I didn't know about that, because he was doing it." To anyone who might ask whether I am proposing a director for carrying the can, the answer is no.
| Next Section | Index | Home Page |