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Mr. Michael Clapham (Barnsley, West and Penistone) (Lab): My hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Central (Tony Lloyd) made a number of points about injuries in industries in his area, as did my right hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, East and Wallsend (Mr. Brown), who noted the great impact of industrial deafness on his community. My hon. Friend also spoke of the effects of the asbestos industry.
Similarly, there is a great deal of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in my community. In 1997, a local authority survey of the community found that about one house in every three included a disabled person. That disability related to their work in heavy industry, such as steel and coal, much of which has now gone.
When the Health and Safety at Work, etc. Act 1974 was being considered, the then Government—a Conservative Government—called in Lord Robens to produce a report. The idea of voluntarism actually came from the 1972 Robens report, because the 1974 Act, which embraced the concept of voluntarism, followed from it. There is no doubt that the Act had a positive impact across industry, bringing to industry in general what was already available in the mining industry. Lord Robens had of course spent a 10-year stint, between 1961 and 1970, as chairman of the National Coal Board, so he knew how the coal industry worked, with its worker safety representatives and safety committees. They had access to what was called "covered accommodation", which was actually a small library at the colliery where the colliery plans and all the safety legislation were available for the local safety representatives, to ensure that they were up to speed with what was happening in the industry.
Lord Robens suggested that the same facilities should be made available to the rest of industry and that is what the 1974 Act did. Many benefits resulted, but they have now slowed down, so we need to revitalise health and safety at work. Indeed, a couple of years ago, the HSC produced a document, "Revitalising health and safety" and we need to pick up on that. The Bill presented by my hon. Friend the Member for Jarrow (Mr. Hepburn) will do that and he deserves congratulations. The measure will take health and safety forward. It complements the Government's proposals on a corporate manslaughter Bill while helping to reinvigorate the 1974 Act. That is most important.
Health and Safety Executive research shows that about 70 per cent. of all accidents at work are avoidable. They can be foreseen and we should work to avoid them. By placing a general duty on directors, with an added duty on directors of larger companies, the Bill will help to drive forward best practice. It will not radically change the present situation. At present, there is a
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voluntary code of practice and, as my hon. Friend pointed out, his Bill takes points 2 and 5 of the code and makes them mandatory on industry. That will drive forward best practice. It will help to focus minds and ensure that we get to grips with preventable accidents.
When we remember that 70 per cent. of workplace accidents are foreseeable, it calls into question the idea that has arisen of late that we have a compensation culture, because if there really was one, the courts would be weighed down by the number of claims. In fact, people in industry in general, and especially trade unions, take a much more reasonable approach to health and safety.
It is important that we deal with some of the devastating failures. We heard from my hon. Friend about the number of accidents: one death for every day of the year. An enormous number of people are killed at work. About 83 people die every week from being exposed to substances that cause respiratory disease or mesothelioma cancer. That is an enormous number. As I mentioned in my intervention, asbestos or exposure to asbestos is likely to cause 186,000 deaths between 2000 and 2050. Unfortunately, there is little that we can do about that, because that bitter legacy is already with us, but we need to consider a treatment and care strategy for people who have been exposed to asbestos, and the Bill could have a connection to that. I hope that Health Ministers will think in those terms. We cannot avoid that legacy, but we can deal with it and make things better for its victims. Such a strategy for mesothelioma sufferers is enormously important for the future. By focusing on the improvements that need to be made, the Bill will connect with that issue.
Although the 1974 Act had certain benefits, it is estimated that, in the 30 years since it was introduced, some 10,000 people have been killed at work and 1.3 million have suffered major injuries, including amputations and crippling back injuries. That has placed an immense burden on the community. That is why business is supporting this Bill. Members who sit on the Work and Pensions Committee say that the CBI is favourable to such legislation because it recognises that those 1.3 million major injuries and 10,000 deaths impose an enormous burden, as do the number of people who have lesser injuries but tend to be off work for long periods of time. It is estimated that 38 million days a year are lost, at a cost to industry of £11 billion. Business recognises that we need to do something to revitalise health and safety to get to grips with those figures and energise industry in such a way that productivity increases. Those lost working days impose burdens not only on the community but on industry.
During that period since 1974, only 322 directors have been prosecuted, and of those only two were disqualified for health and safety offences. The Bill would take a reasonable approach to the way in which we work with industry to achieve the results that we want. It is clear that the voluntary principle that was imported into the current legislation from the Robens report is no longer working. Since 2001, when the voluntary code was introduced by the Health and Safety Commission,
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accidents at work started to increase in certain industries such as construction, where last year deaths at work rose by 4 per cent. and serious injuries by 9 per cent.
Mr. Forth: I defer to the hon. Gentleman's great knowledge of this matter and ask him to help me with a genuine point of information. Given the recent influx of many workers, mainly from eastern Europe and many of them into the construction industry, is it not possible that additional problem may arise through lack of mutual understanding, and that language barriers at the most basic level of the workplace might be a contributory factor in the figures that he cites? Even if managers and supervisors are making a genuine effort to maintain health and safety, problems will arise if they are unable to communicate effectively with workers who cannot understand them.
Mr. Clapham: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for making that important point. The responsibilities set out in the Bill would ensure that the genuine problem that he mentions would have to be dealt with. For example, in the Simon Jones case involving the young man who was killed in an industrial accident on his first day at work, the banksman signalling to the crane driver on the ship did not speak English but Polish. The Bill provides a mechanism for dealing with that problem, because it would place a general duty on directors to ensure that they focus on becoming aware of the working practices that are being used in their industries, which would result in better training.
Jim Sheridan: In relation to the Simon Jones tragedy, does my hon. Friend agree that there was a lack of universal hand signals when the banksman was guiding the crane into the hold of the ship?
Mr. Clapham: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point. When Simon Jones's mother addressed the meeting the other evening, she made it plain that there is no universal language of hand signals for crane drivers in the UK. We have a standard, but it is not universal. That needs to be considered, because hand signals could help to overcome some of the language barriers. We require better training and a full understanding that people speaking different languages must be able to communicate in a way that will result in safer working methods. The Bill deals with many of those issues and would allow us to take a much more positive approach.
I take on board what has been said about large companies. While placing a general duty on all directors, the Bill would have a greater impact on those in large companies. There are some 3.4 million companies in the UK, but the great majority are small and medium-sized, with around 8,000 larger companies. They present a different problem because of the way in which they are structured, but I believe that that can be dealt with. I mentioned my previous experience with the National Coal Board. In the 1960s, the NCB had an enormous structure involving an industry made up of around 250 coal mines, some of which employed as many as 3,000 people. We could use its health and safety structure as a model for how larger companies deal with directors' duties.
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In those days, each colliery had its safety representatives and its safety committee relating to what we called a consultative committee at colliery level, which met regularly with the colliery manager and the safety officer. The consultative committee at regional level, which comprised representatives from the collieries who were on the safety committees, again met at regular intervals. That led up to the consultative committee at national level, which was presided over by a director with responsibility as the industrial relations director. That system worked in a way that resulted in our coal mines being the safest deep coal mines anywhere in the world.
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