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Tony Lloyd: The mining industry at that time is a good example of how things can be done. It may help the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth), who raised the legitimate question of how we drive a Bill through without losing responsibilities at different levels, if my hon. Friend can confirm that, while rights were devolved to a low level in the National Coal Board system, very clear and binding duties were also imposed on people at all levels.
Mr. Clapham: They were indeed. The embracing legislation of the time was the Mines and Quarries Act 1965, which placed duties all the way down the line, right to the coal face. What was interesting was how production was arranged so that safety was a major part of the process. On each coal face, before the administration pact that came in the 1980s and 1990s, a deputy had responsibility for safety and an overman, or under-manager as they later became, had the duty of production. The one with the duty for safety had the overruling duty under the Mines and Quarries Act. The deputy responsible for safety could stop the production process if he thought that lives were being put in danger by the way in which the work was proceeding. There were duties all the way down the line, right down to the individual, just as individuals have duties under the Health and Safety at Work, etc. Act 1974. All that worked well throughout the mining industry and it provides a model for how directors' duties in large companies might work.
On the health and safety information director, who would work in large companies, the Bill says that he would have the responsibility
"to inform the other directors, not less than four times a year, of . . . how the companies activities are affecting the health and safety of its employees and of other persons not in the company's employment".
We could, then, use the structure I referred to—the regular meetings of the consultative committee under British Coal that resulted in the annual report. Those meetings might have happened more than four times a year, and information, through the minutes of the meetings, was distributed down the line. That model fits well with what we are talking about in terms of the duties of the health and safety information director.
Duties other than those relating to employees are important, too. It will be recalled that companies such as Turner and Newell manufactured various things using asbestos. People who lived around the factories were subjected to emissions of substances from the factories to the extent that, we now know, they picked up asbestos-derived diseases, such as various types of
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respiratory problem and cancers. Indeed, women who washed their husbands' clothes that had asbestos dust in them later picked up cancers, too. We must consider that. The Bill gives an opportunity to focus directors' attention on how they would consider such matters and protect the public living near a factory. That would be an enormous step forward, I am sure we would agree across the piece.
Indeed, my friend, the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst may be encouraged to support the Bill. I had not realised until this debate that he was responsible for the legislation relating to Piper Alpha, which, as my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Central said, resulted in our getting to grips with that issue. It was good legislation, and I am sure that input from the right hon. Gentleman, if we can encourage him to give it, would result in the Bill's being much more—shall we say—considerate of other factors, but which would still be appropriate. I hope that we can encourage him to come on board. I think he may well be so encouraged, but we shall hear later whether that is so.
Some of the case studies that have been referred to are alarming. The briefs on the Bill refer to a large number, but I want to make the House aware of just two, which I think the legislation would let us get to grips with. In the first, a maintenance worker fell to his death through a roof. All that he had to work with was safety boards; he did not have a harness. The Health and Safety Executive held an inquiry after the death and found that the company involved had been warned by an inspector about carrying out high-risk roof work without enough safety measures. The company was found guilty on two health and safety offences. No director was convicted of manslaughter, but in a way, that is what that case was. The directors had a warning, and it was foreseeable that an accident of that type could happen. They ignored the warnings and they were not complying with legislation. But the legislation did not have the force that the Bill would have, and the directors ignored it with the result that a person at work lost his life.
The case studies also refer to two steeplejacks killed by a ball of fire while they were working inside an industrial chimney. Again, the company had been warned that that was likely to happen. In that case, the company was fined just £2,000. Two men were killed in the chimney, but the company was fined £2,000. No company director was convicted of manslaughter.
The Bill does not seek to be vengeful. It is about working with industry. Many trade unions support it, as does the Confederation of British Industry. Small and medium-sized businesses would get many benefits from it. We are seeing the development of a network of industrial advisers being built up around the country. There is an advice network in Liverpool and another in Sheffield. I understand that there are five advice centres. Indeed, a reception was held in Westminster only a fortnight ago to welcome some of the work that the network does. The network will become extremely important in working with small and medium-sized enterprises if the Bill becomes law.
In conclusion, I believe that the Bill will bring about improvements, and industry generally welcomes it. The Bill will reinvigorate health and safety and protect people at work.
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11.59 am
Jonathan Shaw (Chatham and Aylesford) (Lab): I am pleased to make a short contribution to the debate. Like other hon. Members, I pay tribute to the hard work of my hon. Friend the Member for Jarrow (Mr. Hepburn). He has a proud record of fighting for workers' rights, and he has worked hard to bring the Bill to the Floor of the House for its Second Reading. I congratulate him.
I have personal experience of not being afforded proper health and safety training while at work. When I left school, I picked fruit in the farms of Kent and I later become a care assistant. Both jobs involved bending—either in lifting people or picking fruit. I was never given proper training, but that was not because the employers were wilfully negligent; it just did not occur to them.
My hon. Friend has forcefully made the point that we want to change the culture. We want directors to consider the issue so that health and safety permeates the whole organisation. That does not mean that if workers are negligent, they should not be prosecuted. We are not saying that. The Bill is not about bashing bosses, but about ensuring that we save the lives of ordinary working people. I know that the proposals are backed by many organisations, including the trade unions and, in particular, the TGWU, UCATT and Amicus. The e-mails that many of us received calling on us to support my hon. Friend's Bill came from all round the country. They were a powerful demonstration that the issue affects working people from every region of the United Kingdom.
As has been said, we are only too aware of high-profile cases such as Hatfield and Potters Bar. In my part of the world, Kent, we remember that, on 6 March 1987, 188 people lost their lives when the Herald of Free Enterprise sank just off the Belgian coast. That was the worst maritime disaster in peacetime since the Titanic went down in 1912. A memorial service will be held this Sunday in Dover, and it will be attended by my hon. Friend the Member for Dover (Mr. Prosser) and survivors and relatives of the victims of the 1987 disaster.
The inquiry into the Herald of Free Enterprise showed a failure of basic positive reporting methods to ensure that the ship's doors were closed. As we know all too well, they were not closed and a prosecution was brought by the families. However, it was impossible to identify those responsible.
We have heard that injuries and deaths take place all too readily, and I shall come to that point later. However, I now wish to refer to a subject in which I have a particular interest—the paper industry. It has had a very poor safety record, but in paper mills across the country, companies and unions such as the Graphical, Paper and Media Union, which has now merged with Amicus, are working together in a determination to drive up health and safety standards and drive out the dangerous practice that leads to lost time, accidents, serious injuries and fatalities.
My constituency has the largest concentration of paper and board manufacturing in the United Kingdom. As the chair of the all-party group on the paper industry, it is evident to me that the industry has made considerable progress. It needed to; it had an appalling record of safety despite a stable, skilled and
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well paid work force enjoying good industrial relations. All sides recognised that they needed to do more, and considerable improvements have taken place. It was one of the worst industries, but it is now performing better than most other paper industries in Europe.
In 1998, the industry experienced two fatalities and had an accident rate of 23.4 per 100 employees. The setting up of the Paper and Board Industry Advisory Committee brought together the unions and HSE representatives to set a target of reducing accidents in the paper industry by more than 50 per cent. over a three-year period. In response to that challenge, the number of reportable injuries started to decline. Although the target had not been reached by the end of March 2001, there had been a 27 per cent. reduction in fatal and major accidents and a 10 per cent. reduction overall. In broad terms, 174 fewer people have been killed or seriously injured during that initiative. As time has gone on, there have been further reductions since then. The result has been a 19 per cent. reduction in 2004.
We would all applaud such good practice, and the commitment came from the very top. The chief executive officers of all the companies devoted time and came together for six annual meetings on the issue. That shows a culture change which was achieved in that industry, but most workers do not work in such large organisations. To bring about such a change in the disparate types of company in which so many are employed is very difficult, and introducing the voluntary code, while welcome—it certainly helped to concentrate minds in the paper industry, which is grateful to the Government and the HSE for their support—will not necessarily assist many people in smaller industries.
What the Bill seeks to achieve is what my right hon. Friend the Chancellor was describing when he said that safety at work is
Last year, 235 workers were killed in work-related incidents. Many of my hon. Friends have reported that 70 per cent. of those fatalities could have been prevented. There are endless, appalling accounts. We heard a very graphic example from the hon. Member for Gordon (Malcolm Bruce) earlier, and my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley, West and Penistone (Mr. Clapham) referred to the one that I was going to mention, so I will not repeat it.
The Bill is timely. It sits very well with the British sense of fair play. Hon. Members have given up their time and come along to support the Bill because the lives of too many of our fellow workers and people in the United Kingdom have been ended far too soon, when accidents could have been prevented. Let us change the culture. There has been a start—the Government are committed to introducing the draft legislation—but things need to be improved that bit more. My hon. Friend the Member for Jarrow has done very well. This has been a measured debate, highlighting good examples of where we need change, and the Bill will have the popular support of the vast majority of people in this country.
12.7 pm
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