Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill

David Anderson Excerpts

Tuesday 16th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Hancock]

The hon. Gentleman gives a good explanation of why there is cross-party support for health and safety measures that are reasonable. After all, it was a Conservative Government who brought in the Factory Acts. On the specific point that he raises, the provision is forward looking and is not retrospective. It will not have an impact on acts that were committed in the past, but is about actions that take place in the future. He raises an important question and I hope that I have reassured him.

[Mr David Anderson (Blaydon) (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for giving way; he is being very helpful. Will he clarify whether there is currently—or will be in the legislation—a legal definition of what “reasonable” actually means?

[Matthew Hancock]

The definition of reasonableness will come from the common law interpretation, and the concept is already well regarded and specified in law.

The new clause makes a significant contribution to the Government’s reform of civil litigation to redress the balance between claimants and defendants. It is good for Britain’s competitiveness, reduces burdens on businesses, and strengthens and underpins our health and safety system, thereby ensuring that people think it is fit for purpose.

--- Later in debate ---

This is yet another example of Ministers seeking to water down vital civil redress on the basis of anecdote, ideology and perception. Such a measure should not be in what the Government deem to be an enterprise Bill.

[Mr Anderson]

In Committee, mention was made of anecdote, a lack of evidence and perceptions, but we have to add a new one, which the Minister led with—impressions. We now have a Government run by impressions, but they are not very good at making impressions.

[Mr Wright]

The Minister is the Mike Yarwood of the House of Commons. It is nice to see a good, relevant, pertinent and timely reference to popular culture, from my own point of view.

The new clause will do nothing to enhance recovery and enterprise, and might have the unintended consequence of making the health and safety environment less safe and therefore less productive and efficient. I ask the Minister to think again, because this does nothing to aid the recovery that the country so badly needs.

[Mr Anderson]

The Minister started with his experience in the world of health and safety. My experience is based not only on my life as someone who worked for 20 years in the coal mining industry and then as a care worker but before that on the experience of my father, who worked the coal mines in the 1930s, when, in this country, one coal miner was killed every six hours on average. Think about that. One thousand men a year did not go home, in part because health and safety was a laughing matter and put to one side, because production was all. My father was twice buried alive—thankfully, he got out both times—and had a very close friend die in his arms, having had his head crushed between two mining coal tubs. It was not a satisfactory way to spend your life.

As a result of that history, the Government in 1947 nationalised the coal mines, set up a train of processes that included health and safety committees in the mining industry and joint consultative committees, and started planning for legislation that produced the Mines and Quarries Act 1954. That Act was actually put in place by a one-nation Tory Government, but they did it for the right reasons—to improve the conditions of people who were vital to the economic success of this country. As a result of that legislation and the improved techniques and machinery, the number of people dying in mines in the 1980s could be counted in single figures. The work force was depleted by about 70% between the 1930s and 1980s, but the number of health and safety measures fell from 1,000 to fewer than 10. For me, that history is vital to understanding how important health and safety issues are.

In 1989, I moved from the mines to become a care worker taking care of elderly people. Members might think that that is a completely different scenario, but let us think about it. The Minister gave the example of the bottle of bleach in the cupboard. It is important to know what is in cupboards to which people might well have access, particularly older people who might not have the capacity to understand what they are dealing with. That is why we introduced measures such as the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 2002, which were about protecting people dealing with dangerous liquids.

There were issues around the lifting and handling of people who were not mobile. The impact on care businesses was huge. People accepted, however, that if they wanted to do things properly and protect not only the workers but the people they were taking care of, they needed to introduce such measures. There were other issues around medication—how to supply it, how to make it safe, how to make sure it was not given to the wrong person, how to make sure that medication records were kept up to speed—that were all part and parcel of the health and safety measures that we should all be pleased are in place.

The discussions on the Bill have been marked, certainly in Committee, by a lack of real evidence. The man tasked by the Prime Minister with reviewing employment law, Adrian Beecroft, was questioned during the evidence-taking sessions, particularly by my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Clwyd (Chris Ruane). In response to the question about what the empirical evidence and research was based on, Adrian Beecroft said:

“I accept the accusation that my views on whether the change would improve the efficiency of people working in businesses are based on conversations with a sample of people, which is not statistically valid.”––[Official Report, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Public Bill Committee, 21 June 2012; c. 145, Q330.]

[Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman is making some important points, but, regarding evidence, perhaps we could learn lessons from our European partners. For example, the nursery staff ratio in Germany is considerably less than here, which has driven down the costs while maintaining safety. So there is evidence, if we look further afield.

[Mr Anderson]

I am more than happy to follow that knowledge. If we want examples, let us look at Germany right across the board—at its employment legislation and practices, including on health and safety. It is a good example of an economy that is growing while having much tighter working rights and better regulation than this country does.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

I was interested in what the hon. Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson) said about Germany, but he forgot one thing—after the war, it was a Labour Government who, along with their allies, set up the German industrial and other structures.

[Mr Anderson]

That is absolutely right. We took the best of what we had in this country, and thankfully the Germans picked it up. It would be a good idea if we looked at what they did and brought it here.

To repeat, Adrian Beecroft talked about

“conversations with a sample of people, which is not statistically valid.”––[Official Report, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Public Bill Committee, 21 June 2012; c. 145, Q330.]

So there is no evidence base. It is a couple of guys talking in the pub, at a football match or out playing golf. It is two old guys sitting in deck chairs, saying, “Wouldn’t it be nice if we got rid of all this health and safety stuff and all these employment rights? Then everyone could make more money.”

[Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab)]

Whether perception or reality, one thing we know for certain is that nearly 200 people were killed in the workplace last year and that in excess of 20,000 people were killed or died as a result of work. That is the evidence base. That is factually correct. There is little evidence other than that. Does my hon. Friend agree?

[Mr Anderson]

I could not agree more with my hon. Friend. He speaks from the history of the real world, not from just reading books and studying things at university. He has been in the real world and seen how people are affected when health and safety is allowed to go by the board. The words that were used continually in Committee were: “The perception is this”, “The impression is this.” It was based on anecdotes and assumptions. There was no evidence. If we create laws without evidence, we create nonsense.

In conclusion, I return to the word that I asked the Minister to define—“reasonableness”. In 20 or 30 years of negotiating contracts for people at work, that is one of the words I used to hate in any contract, because “reasonable” is made of elastic. It is a word used by lawyers and others to get around things. I will give hon. Members a real example. I used to represent home care workers, who went into people’s houses and took care of some of the most vulnerable people in this country. Their contracts included a range of duties, and included the words, “and other reasonable things”. There were questions: is it reasonable for a home care worker to bathe an old man or old woman? Is it reasonable for a home care worker to distribute medication to a man or woman? One would think, “Well, of course it is,” but if something went wrong, the employer would say, “You shouldn’t have been doing that. You’re not paid to do that. You shouldn’t have given that medication; you didn’t know whether they’d had it earlier in the day.” I am therefore concerned when the Minister says that the word “reasonable” can apply in that way, because it is a word that will be argued over and tossed around whenever there is a dispute.

Let me return to the point, which was mentioned earlier, that the Bill will create a “new impression”. It will create the impression that all bets are off—that employers do not have to care about health and safety, and that people can do what they want as long as they believe it is reasonable. It will not be reasonable when the statistics that my hon. Friend the Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery) spoke about earlier are not 200 people but 300 people a year killed in the workplace. Indeed, it will not be 20,000 people dying from injuries, but 30,000 people. We will come to regret this; it should be stopped at this stage.

[Jim Sheridan]

I rise to speak as chair of the all-party health and safety group. Unfortunately there are no active junior coalition partners on the group; hence the reason we have such a poor turnout from the junior coalition partners for this debate. I have no doubt that at the next election the Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson)—who is in her place on the Front Bench—will be telling people in the west of Scotland that she stood up for workers. However, we will be reminding her of what her party has been doing for the workers.

The all-party group’s activities include producing reports. Just recently we published a report in conjunction with the TUC on asbestos in schools. I would encourage the Minister to get a copy of that report, which basically suggests that we have to challenge perceptions. Who would have thought that there was a health and safety issue in our schools? But there is. Some of our decaying schools are riddled with asbestos, and pupils, teachers, janitors and other people working in schools are being exposed to it. People do not see it, so they think there is not a problem, but there is in fact a major problem. Despite representations to the coalition Government to take action, they have so far refused to do so, which is unacceptable. Indeed, I am told that this place is being shut down for a number of years to deal with asbestos, so it is quite okay to clear the asbestos in this place, so that we can all live safely, but we cannot do it for our children in the schools. That for me tests the perception of this coalition Government when it comes to health and safety.

As I have said, in my earlier days when I worked in the shipyards in the west of Scotland in Glasgow, I remember seeing white flakes floating down and being told by the employer, “You’re just a trouble maker. There’s nothing wrong with them; it’s just rays of sunshine coming through.” I have to admit that we do not get many rays of sunshine in Glasgow, but on the days that we did, we could see those white flakes floating down. We raised concerns, but we were told that we were just being stroppy and obtrusive, when in fact we were talking about something that caused a real disease that people could not see. Since then I have attended far too many funerals of people who worked in the shipyards and had died a horrible death from mesothelioma. Indeed, even insurance companies are now refusing to pay out. Those poor people and their families who are chasing compensation are having to deal with unscrupulous insurance companies that even today are denying them the opportunity of compensation. I hope that those on the Government Benches will be able to tell their constituents who are suffering from asbestos-related disease that they are doing the right thing for future generations, because at the moment that is exactly what they are not doing.

--- Later in debate ---

[Matthew Hancock]

We have had impassioned contributions to the debate, not least from the hon. Members for Blaydon (Mr Anderson) and for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Jim Sheridan). Several Opposition Members have made the point about a lack of consultation with the Opposition Front Benchers. However, the Löfstedt review involved a consultation, to which there were something like 400 submissions. That review published some of the evidence on which our proposal is based, not least evidence showing that most employers do not make a distinction between health and safety measures on a civil and a criminal basis. They are therefore more likely to waste time over-complying—the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North mentioned the problem of time being wasted—than to focus on the need to ensure rigorous health and safety so that they can reduce the number of deaths and serious injuries in the workplace. That is what is valuable, and Opposition Members have spoken powerfully about it. That is where the focus should be, rather than on over-compliance with the details and technicalities that are often put in place, which are not required and not helpful for safety purposes. Instead, they give health and safety a bad name.

[Mr Anderson]

Is not the danger, though, that we will end up with under-compliance, which will lead to more people dying? I would rather waste time, as the Minister puts it, than waste lives.

[Matthew Hancock]

I assure the hon. Gentleman that if there is under-compliance, people will have been negligent and the full force of both the criminal and civil law will be available.

The hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr Wright) mentioned the Federation of Small Businesses, but it has stated:

“A wider problem for small businesses is that many do not feel confident that they are compliant owing to confusion about what is absolutely necessary, and so feel the need to gold-plate the law to protect them.”

Indeed, an FSB survey showed that 87% of its members supported the Löfstedt approach. Given that figure, and given that the FSB is clear about the lack of confidence caused by the current confusion in the law, I hope he will accept that it is very much behind the Government’s approach.

Likewise, EEF, the manufacturers’ organisation, has stated:

“The current compensation system is serving the needs of neither employees nor employers and is the source of many of the media stories and public concern about excessive health and safety.”

That concern has been part of our debate. Of course, the substance of when technical breaches occur is a crucial part of the change that we are making, but I am glad that the hon. Gentleman acknowledged that there is also the problem of perception, which leads to over-complication. Both those problems need to be addressed, and they will be by our changes.