ACCIDENTS AT WORK

HC Deb 21 December 1961 vol 651 cc1607-29

2.3 p.m.

Mr. Elwyn Jones (West Ham, South)

I regret to raise on the eve of Christmas such a sombre theme as accidents at work, but the fact remains that today about 22 million of our countrymen will be at work and in the course of the day it is probable that about 2,500 of them will be injured in the course of their work. Further, four or five people at work who are alive now will be dead before the day is over.

I make no apology for putting the matter in such graphic terms. Last year, in premises to which the Factories Acts applied, there were more than 190,000 accidents causing death or disability from work for more than three days. Of those, 675 were fatal accidents compared with less than 600 in 1959. The figures show an increase of over 16,000 accidents over the total for 1959—an increase of 9 per cent.—and although special factors and the increase in the working population account for some of the increase, I am sure that the Parliamentary Secretary will agree that the situation is gravely disturbing.

The 1960 figures continued at accelerated rate the trend which began in 1959. Compared with the downward trend for the ten years ended 1958, the 1960 total was the highest for ten years. Accidents, for instance, in building operations reached an alarming new record and in docks and warehouses—with which my constituency is particularly concerned—we saw the highest total since 1955. What is even more disturbing; accidents to women and young persons increased proportionately more than accidents to men. The number of accidents per thousand workers in the manufacturing industries showed a rise of 4 per cent, in accidents to males, compared with 9 per cent. in accidents to females.

Reported accidents to young persons numbered over 12,500, an increase of more than 1,500 compared with the previous year and an increase of 15 per cent. There were nearly 10,000 accidents to boys, an increase of 17 per cent.

As statistics may be dull, perhaps I can illustrate the gravity and tragedy of the problem by speaking of two cases with which I am familiar. A little girl in Cardiff in 1960, at the age of 16, suffered severe injuries to her right hand on a core-making machine. She had had 15 minutes' instruction and one and a half days' experience at that machine before she suffered this nasty accident which maimed her for life. A boy in London who was injured in 1960—at the age of 15—lost half his right thumb on a platen machine. He had had no proper training and had been working for six weeks on the machine before his accident.

These cases are not exceptional. I know of several cases—details of which I could provide if necessary—where girls and boys aged 15, 16 and 17 are put to work on dangerous machines, some of them inadequately guarded, without any safety training at all. It is a deplorable aspect of our contemporary industrial life that young people like this are simply thrown into industries as a form of cheap labour with no, or the most inadequate, training in safety matters.

This scandal—and a scandal it is—may get worse. How would hon. Members like their own children to be subjected to these hazards without training? It may get worse for the reason put forward by the Factory Inspectorate; that the number of boys and girls leaving school will continue to increase over the next two or three years. Thus an increased number of unskilled and untrained workers will be thrown into factory environment and will thereby be vulnerable to these hazards. In a large number of industrial undertakings—and especially in the smaller ones, where the chief evils arise—children are taken in straight from school. Perhaps—and not even this in all cases—they are given a short explanation in a general way by the foreman or charge-hand on what their duties will be and they are then put to work.

The practice seems to be for the foreman or charge-hand to take them to the machine, which is all too often being operated at that time by a child who left school the term before. The new employee will usually be left to watch the other youngster at work from periods of from half an hour to a day and then this untrained boy or girl is set to work on the machine. In most cases the work is dull. It is high-speed, repetitive work often involving the output of hundreds of thousands of components. There is, therefore, nothing to capture the imagination of the young worker and his attention tends to stray. This, coupled with the almost total absence of training—and, alas, all too often, the absence of adequate safeguards on the machines—produces the serious position with which we are now confronted.

The accident rate among adult workers, too, may become worse with more and more machines becoming more and more high powered and more and more dangerous. More hours worked, greater output, greater storing, constant change in the rate and duration of flow of work—all are factors which tend to increase the risk of accidents.

So far I have spoken only of reportable accidents under the Factories Acts, which is only a part of the picture—indeed, only about a quarter of the picture—of accidents at work. It is startling to discover that in farming, for instance, accidents occur proportionately mare than they do in factories. Each year there are over 800,000 cases of injury at work and the average period of incapacity is four weeks. These cause appalling suffering not only to the worker but to his family. I remember in my own childhood the dread in a working-class street of the knock at the door and the news that "There has been an accident at the works." The cost in terms of pounds, shillings and pence is enormous. Mr. John Wiiliams, in his masterly study of "Accidents and ill health at work", cites authorities which put the cost at figures ranging from £100 million to £300 million a year.

Yet accidents just do not happen. They are caused. They can be prevented. It is quite wrong—I am sure the Parliamentary Secretary will agree with me—to assume that there must be an irreducible minimum of upreventable accidents. As the International Labour Office, whose work in this field we all recognise, has put it, Industrial accidents are not truly accidental occurrences. They nearly all have causes which are both ascertainable and controllable. The stark fact is that, as the Factory Inspectorate has reported time and again, at places of work where accident prevention is taken seriously the yearly totals of accidents are much less than at other works of a similar kind. Accordingly, in my submission, in view of the undoubted worsening of the situation, we have reached the stage where there is an urgent need for a change of attitude in industry as a whole—owners officials and workers. There is also need for a fresh impetus and a new intervention from the Government. Whether we shall get it from the present Government, who have so deplorably dragged their feet over the implementation of the Gowers Committee's recommendations, is another matter. But on this eve of Christmas I do not want to enter unduly into political controversy.

The heart of the problem is twofold—first, the need for enforcement and extension to unprotected processes and places of the provisions of the Factories Acts and the regulations issued under them; secondly, and perhaps even more important, the need for more effective safety organisation at the place of work itself.

As to enforcement, this is now largely done by the able, devoted but overworked Factory Inspectorate. I think that the members of the Factory Inspectorate would be the first to say that they cannot be wholly effective on their own, for the simple reason that they cannot be at the place of work all the time. Their effectiveness depends on safety organisation on the spot which should be there to assist them in their endeavours. I am sure they would insist that safety matters should be under constant supervision in every undertaking.

In any event, however, the strength of the Factory Inspectorate, even allowing for the most welcome recent increase in numbers which the Ministry of Labour has announced, will still be inadequate for its task. In effect, the work of regular routine inspection of places subject to the Factories Acts is done by from 320 to 330 members of the general Inspectorate. As there are nearly 250,000 places of employment affected by the Factories Acts, it is extremely doubtful whether the Factory Inspectorate can, on its present establishment or indeed on the establishment as it is to be increased, achieve the standard of the I.L.O. Convention of 1947 to which we have subscribed, namely that work places shall be inspected as often and as thoroughly as is necessary to ensure effective application of the relevant provisions. This deficiency in the strength of the Inspectorate is particularly grievous at a time when there is considerable evidence of a widespread absence of any safety organisation at all in many work places, or any effective safety organisation in many of them. Work place safety organisations are of two kinds, voluntary and the compulsory. It is curious that in the mining industry compulsory safety provisions specified by Statute have been the pattern for a long time, partly no doubt because of the dangerous nature of the work of mining. Mines Acts have required mine owners to appoint deputies to carry out specified duties in regard to inspection and safety, and even more interesting is the mining legislation that provides for the election by the workers of their own inspectors whom they pay, with statutory powers to inspect mines and investigate accidents. It is most valuable because this machinery enables those with most at stake—that is to say, their own survival and safety—to exert a direct influence on matters of safety.

In my view, the time is ripe for considering the introduction of similar provisions by industry itself, especially where dangerous processes are involved, for the evidence is clear that these compulsory work place safety organisations have been invaluable in the mining industry. This suggestion that it should be extended to industries other than mining is not novel. Indeed, it was made in 1927 when there was another sombre phase of increases in accidents, and the Draft Safety Order of 1927 was produced. This provided that the occupier of a factory had to submit a scheme for special supervision in regard to safety, investigation of the circumstances and causes of accidents and generally to promote safety. If no scheme was approved, the employer was obliged to employ a competent safety supervisor whose duties were defined in most helpful detail.

This Draft Order was circulated by the Inspectorate among employers, and they were told that if they were prepared to introduce similar machinery voluntarily the Order would not be pressed. The employers purported to accept the alternative. But the question remains: has the voluntary effort, in fact, proved adequate and is it effective now? Over a wide range of places of work the answer to those questions is "No". It is true that many employers employ full-time safety officers. That, of course, is extremely important and most welcome. Many of them do their work admirably and are taken seriously, and they instil safety consciousness. But again, as Mr. John Williams has pointed out, the position of the safety officer in industry is still uncertain, and his rôle varies according to the attitude of the management.

Worse than that is the stark fact that a full-time safety officer is still the exception rather than the rule. I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will give the House figures showing the number of full-time safety officers employed in factories and specifying, in relation to the numbers employed in factories, how many safety officers there are and in what percentage of factories they exist.

Even more unhappy is the position in regard to safety committees. The Inspectorate, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, the Industrial Welfare Society, employers' associations, trade unions, the T.U.C. and the I.L.O.—a wide range of experts in these matters—have commended the institution of safety committees. The reasons are obvious. A safety committee involves a number of persons having an active interest on the spot, able to analyse accidents, develop policy and draw on practical experience. They are able to stimulate safety consciousness and help the Inspectorate. There are abundant resaons why safety committees should be widely used in industry. They are not.

We raised this matter in a Private Members' Bill six or seven years ago. It then emerged, I think, that in only about 2 per cent. of factories were there safety organisations. I hope that the Minister will tell us the number of safety committees in various types of factories in the country today. I fear that the figures will be disappointing. It is deplorable that there should be this absence of safety organisation on the spot in such a wide range of industries when it is known that where they exist they have led to remarkable results in the reduction of accidents. One sees this time and again in the reports of the Inspectorate, accident rates being cut sometimes by as much as 50 per cent.

This being the lamentable picture, the conclusion is irresistible. The voluntary system has largely failed and it is now time to consider an element of compulsion. The Minister already has powers of compulsion at his disposal under the Factories Acts. There is limited prevision in some regulations—like those for the pottery industry, with which my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Dr. Stross) was so actively concerned, and those for the celluloid industry and the building industry—for the appointment of safety officials by the employers. This has been done and they have proved very useful. Regrettably, they have had limited usefulness in building operations for reasons which, unfortunately, I have no time to pursue now. Perhaps the Parliamentary Secretary will tell us something about that.

Apart from provisions in certain regulations for the appointment of safety officials by employers, the Minister already has power to require a safety organisation to be introduced where he considers it necessary. By Section 38 of the Factories Act, he has specific power to make regulations requiring a safety organisation to be set up in particular trades or processes where he considers it necessary in view of the number and nature of accidents occurring. But, to the best of my knowledge, no regulations have ever been made under that Section. It is high time that it was done. I do not think that the compulsory process would damage the voluntary set-up at all. On the contrary, it would give impetus to the solution of the whole safety problem.

A further word about young persons. The emphasis here must be on proper apprenticeship in the full sense. The vast majority of firms do not train apprentices at all; they are quite content to use boys and girls as cheap labour. Where there is no proper apprenticeship—and that is the clue, for early assimilated training and safety awareness is necessary—there should at least be adequate safety training, which ought to start in the last year or so at school. Road safety training is now common in schools, and it must have saved many lives, but in rare cases only is there training for safety at work. I cannot help thinking that more could be done through local labour exchanges acting in conjunction with technical colleges and schools—which, incidentally, I hope will in their turn keep a watchful eye on their own safety standards which, I am sorry to say, are not always as good as they should be.

In my view, the most stringent requirements should be made on employers of all young workers to give proper safety training before young workers are permitted to work on any dangerous machine, and heavy penalties should be imposed on employers who fail to comply.

Curiously enough, some provisions do exist under the Factories Acts, requiring the training of young persons on certain machines. Is there not a strong case for extending those provisions? In mining the Coal Board has made an organised attempt to influence new entrants in safety matters; indeed, they are not sent to the coal face without long training. Also, there are some companies in industry generally which take the problem very seriously. For instance, the Steel Company of Wales, with which I am familiar, has arrangements whereby each boy employee has forty half-hour periods of safety training in each year. This type of education is vital in industry.

The accident picture is a very sombre one. I hope that the message which will emerge from the Parliamentary Secretary's reply today, as a new year resolution for industry and for his Ministry, will be "Safety First".

2.27 p.m.

Dr. Barnett Stress (Stoke-on-Trent, Central)

We have all listened with the deepest interest to my hon. and learned Friend the Member for West Ham, South (Mr. Elwyn Jones). He has described the picture as a sombre one. In the early part of his speech, he gave 190,000 as the number of accidents reported by the Chief Inspector of Factories, an increase of 9 per cent. on the previous year. It is my purpose, in supporting all he has said, to show that the figures he has given, which have been presented to us by the Chief Inspector, are not correct and that the true picture must be very much worse. If my hon. and learned Friend is right in saying that the picture is sombre, I hope to be able to satisfy the House and the Minister that it really is very much blacker than it appears to be on the surface.

Obviously, if we are to appreciate the problem properly and find a feasible method of solution, we must know everything we can about it. We have a right to ask that the total number of accidents as given should be as near as possible correct. The Chief Inspector himself does not know. The reason he does not know was made clear on 4th December by the Minister of Labour when, in reply to a Question from me asking, in effect, what he intended to do about obtaining figures of accidents which are not reported to the Inspectorate and which should be so reported, he said: I am considering means by which I could obtain more reliable information than is now available to me about the extent to which accidents are not reported."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 4th December, 1961; Vol. 650, c. 114.] The evidence that I wish to put forward showing that accidents are not reported is this. The spells of certified incapacity arising from accidents as shown by the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance in his tables are very much greater than the number of accidents reported to the factory inspectors. In table 41, on pages 122 and 123 of the Report of the Ministry of Pensions for the year 1959, the spells of incapacity are set out on an industry basis. I have taken the groups 4 to 18 inclusive. Group 4 deals with the chemical and allied trades and group 18 with the gas, electricity and water undertakings. I have left out group 19, which deals with transport and communications, and, for the purpose of my calculation, I leave out men employed in the water undertakings. I recognise that some of the individual cases in the table should be left out from my calculations, because they do not come under the protection of the Minister of Labour or under the Factories Acts. I give some brief examples.

If a clerk employed in a cotton mill is injured, he is included in the statistics, but he does not come under the Factories Acts. A lorry driver driving a lorry for a foundry may be included but should not, in the interests of accuracy, be included for my purpose. Neither should a commercial traveller employed by a clothing factory. Two or three spells of incapacity in one year can arise from one accident—in rare cases perhaps even more than three. Because of this, I have left out from my calculations workers in the docks and in water undertakings. In leaving them out, I have been generous for the purpose of my calculations.

When we add up groups 4 to 18 we find that the total is 235,000 compared with the 174,000 accidents reported to the Chief Inspector, 61,000 more than appears—in other words, an increase of 35 per cent. The explanation, I think, is clear. The men and women who are injured and go off work for more than three days make a monetary claim. Therefore, the figures can be obtained from the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance. But all that the Minister of Labour can do is to say, "I have the figures of all the accidents which have been reported to me. All accidents ought to be reported, but I suspect that they are not." Every accident should be reported, whether to the inspector for safety in agriculture or to the factory inspector, as well as a report being made for the purpose of monetary claims.

The Chief Inspector cannot help but under-state the number of accidents. Last year, there were not 190,000 accidents, but at least 250,000. This shows how sombre is the picture. The key to the problem is in the hands of the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance. He could, if a change which I shall suggest shortly were made, give us more accurate information than we have at present if he broke down the tables so that we knew which workers came under the Factory Inspectorate, which came under agriculture, which came under mines, and so on.

I suppose that the worst offenders in this matter are the very small factories employing 1 to 25 people. Eighty-three per cent. of the factories in this country employ only 1 to 25 people. The employers in them tend to be ignorant of their duties. There is not a frequent enough inspection to satisfy, I believe, the Minister or the Parliamentary Secretary. There is certainly not enough to satisfy the workers in industry. Employers tend to be left for four to five years before someone visits them and reminds them of their statutory duty. That is one of the reasons why I want more factory inspectors. If the accident rate is 20 per 1,000, we can assume that in the small factories employing 1 to 25 people there were about 22,600 accidents last year.

I wonder how many of those accidents were reported. I suggest—this is a guess; we can only guess in these matters—that less than one-third of those accidents were reported to the Factory Inspectorate. No doubt all the accidents for which people wish to make a monetary claim were reported to the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance. As I hope I have made clear, the figures of the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance are not good enough for our purpose. They are not absolutely clear. There is too much speculation about detail in them.

We have noted with pleasure that the Factory Inspectorate is to be increased by about 30 inspectors. The Parliamentary Secretary has heard my hon. and learned Friend plead for special protection to be given to young people. When I have put Questions to the Minister of Education about the need to give special care and training in accident prevention to young men and women training and working in laboratories and machine shops in technical schools, I have been told that there is adequate consultation with the Factory Inspectorate. But there is not adequate consultation with the Factory Inspectorate.

Now that we are to have over 30 new inspectors out of the extra 350 that I should like to see—that would mean doubling the number of inspectors—will the Parliamentary Secretary ensure that approaches are made to the Minister of Education offering to inspect technical schools and technical colleges where those who are to be the future leaders of industry are being trained but not adequately catered for in the prevention of accidents? I think that this could be done.

My hon. and learned Friend said that 320 or 330 inspectors actually inspect. He said they are responsible for 250,000 factories and sites, but, in fact, they are responsible for about 300,000 factories and sites. In those circumstances, they do very well indeed if they can inspect a factory once in four years. The whole country thinks that this is not good enough. It is thought that they should be able to inspect them at least once in two years. Here we have an invaluable body of men with a great tradition. For a hundred years they have been working in accident prevention. Whether we lose £100 million a year or £300 million a year, as stated by my hon. and learned Friend, through accidents, surely it is worth spending the few hundred thousand pounds needed to double the complement of the Inspectorate.

I remember another occasion when I found that virtually all children throughout the country who were making pottery at school, all adults who were attending evening classes and all students who were being trained at technical schools in pottery-making were, until I raised the matter three or four years ago, subjected to raw lead glazes and the constant steady risk of lead poisoning. Nobody was doing anything about it because the Factory Inspectorate could not go in and was never asked to do so. So much for the amount of consultation that goes on between the Ministry of Labour and other Departments.

I am asking for much more cooperation. I am asking for two things One is an increase in the Inspectorate of a more substantial nature than we have been promised; and the other is for more research to be done into the prevention of accidents and for co-ordination and co-operation between the Government Departments who are involved.

The Minister of Pensions and National Insurance is allowed to do research, or, if he does not do it himself, he may contribute to research under Section 73 of the 1947 Act. I asked the Minister the other day what he does. He replied that it was not for him, but for his right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour, to do it. The Minister of Labour, however, does no formal research in accident prevention. He analyses the figures and presents a picture to the country—and a horrifying picture it is, as he agrees. Having done this, he does not do any more. We would like more than this to be done by those who can do it. If the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance can contribute, let him pay and let the Minister of Labour then do the work of research.

I ask, however, for something which would cost no money but would be very effective; that is, that the Ministry of Labour and the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance, the Departments connected with agriculture and mining and any Department which is involved in safety legislation, should co-operate and work together to ensure that the figures and tables that are made available shall be accurate, for with accuracy, once we know the extent of our suffering, we will be able to move forward with greater certainty of success than we have done up to the present.

2.43 p.m.

Mr. R. E. Prentice (East Ham, North)

My hon. and learned Friend the Member for West Ham, South (Mr. Elwyn Jones) has done a great service by initiating this debate. This is a matter which deserves far more attention, and at greater length, from the House, and which should receive much more attention by the public outside. I wish that the Press would make more of this big social problem.

I do not know exactly how many people are injured at work every year. My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Dr. Stross) has indicated the complications that exist, but including the people working in premises which come under the Factories Acts and in other premises, including reported and unreported accidents, the number is obviously very large. Some of my trade union friends estimate that it may be as many as 1 million accidents a year throughout all places of work.

That is a tremendous total. It is far more than the total of road accidents, which receive a great deal of public attention. In terms of time lost from work, it is many times the length of time that is lost in strikes, which also receive a lot of attention. In other words, we are dealing with a problem which, from both its human and its economic angle, deserves much more attention than it has had. It is particularly disturbing that in 1960 there was a rise of 9 per cent, in reported accidents over the previous year, which itself showed a rise over the year before. I do not know the current figures for 1961. Possibly, the Parliamentary Secretary can tell us something about this when he replies.

It is often said, and it has been said by the Minister of Labour in reply to the Questions which we have asked him from time to time, that the scope of Government action is limited and that this is a problem which has to be dealt with within industry. Obviously, there is a certain amount of truth in that, although it can be overstated. My view is that the Government could do rather more than they are doing now.

Obviously, we cannot legislate against carelessness. We cannot, by Government action, decide how a man shall lift a heavy weight, how a load is to be tied up, or all the other practical problems that lead to so many accidents. There is tremendous need for employers generally to come up to the standard already set by the best employers. There is a great contrast between the figures of accidents for some firms and for other firms. This ought to be regarded as one of the primary responsibilities of management, but in far too many cases it is not being so regarded.

One should add that the trade unions obviously have a duty, which to some extent they are carrying out—but there again, it is a patchy record—first, to inculcate as far as they can safety consciousness among their members, and secondly, themselves to bring up to scratch those employers who fall short and to campaign for more joint safety committees and the like.

The House will probably like to welcome the recent statement by Mr. Frank Cousins on behalf of the Transport and General Workers' Union that that union is initiating a safety campaign throughout the whole of the industries in which its members work. This union, with its membership of 1¼ million, has members in many industries. It is organising a nationwide campaign both for reducing the number of accidents and for improving the standards of occupational health. It is urging its branches and local officials to pay particular attention to the need to establish joint safety committees at places of work.

We all have to recognise that this is not a matter which can be solved in a union headquarters any more than in this House, but that it must be solved at the place of work. That is where the great effort must be made. The Government themselves have the overall responsibility of giving a lead. Many of us feel that although the Government express good intentions on this matter, they do not follow them up with action which is sufficiently positive. Of the many things which the Government could do, a substantial increase in the Factory Inspectorate is the most obvious step. Inspection is one factor in preventing accidents, and it is a factor directly under the control of the Government.

We welcome, of course, the modest increase in the numbers of the Factory Inspectorate announced by the Minister a week or two ago, but, as in so many things, the Government do too little and too late. We ought to be setting a much higher standard indeed. Clearly, if an inspector goes more regularly to every place of work, it is important not only in the sense that he can detect breaches of the Factories Acts, but it is important in the positive sense that he can make suggestions, circulate ideas or draw to the attention of one firm the good practices being followed by another firm. He could help and advise on the establishment of joint safety committees.

I wonder to what extent any increase in the number of inspections will flow from this modest increase in the strength of the Inspectorate. It has recently been given new duties to carry out. Next March, in particular, the new regulations about building and civil engineering come into effect, and we all welcome them, but they will mean new burdens on the Inspectorate. To what extent will the increase in numbers enable the inspectors to do a more thorough job in terms of more frequent inspections?

We understand that the practice is to make a thorough investigation of every one of the premises registered under the Acts every four years and more frequently where there is extra danger. This standard of one inspection every four years simply will not do. It was in 1923 that the International Labour Organisation passed a recommendation that there should be annual inspection of premises at which people work. The Minister suggested to me only last week in reply to a Question that modern developments had made that standard somewhat out of date. I do not believe that that is true. I would have thought that at least an annual inspection of every place of work should be aimed at.

The T.U.C., which recently sent a deputation to the Minister, suggested an immediate increase in the Inspectorate sufficient to enable it to inspect every place of work at least once every two years, with an annual inspection as the objective to be reached as soon as possible, realising that it would take time to build up the Inspectorate to that level. I can only say that I think that we ought to keep after the Government on this and urge that it should be done.

Now I would mention briefly a few other things that might be done. First, there was that very good point which my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central about the need for more research, and the point my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for West Ham, South made, that the Government should really make use of their powers under Section 38 of the Act to compel certain firms and establishments to set up safety organisations. The Government ought to have the information to enable them to know where that should be done so that they can use those powers.

Then I should like to see the Government making much more vigorous use of public relations. The Department does issue some useful pamphlets. The series on "Accidents and How They Happen" was very useful, but to reach a wider public and raise the level of consciousness of the problems, and to make people on the work floor much more aware of them, we need more use of modern techniques—more films, time taken on television, things of that sort. To bring home to people the range of the problem requires the use of better and more up-to-date methods.

I should like to ask the Parliamentary Secretary to what extent the Ministry is planning to have conferences in industries along the lines of the excellent conference which took place in October, in Newcastle, for the shipbuilding industry. It was a conference at which the Minister himself spoke, also the Chief Inspector of Factories and representatives from both sides of industry, and it was about the problems of industrial safety in that industry. I would hope that th at useful exercise could be followed by similar conferences in other industries.

I come, in conclusion, to the problem of the young people. It is very disturbing indeed that, whereas there was a general increase in the number of industrial accidents in 1959 and 1960, there was a much larger proportionate increase among young workers, and it is particularly disturbing that this should happen just before the "bulge" in the number of the younger population begins to spill out on to the labour market. The number of young people leaving school and going into industry this year was one-quarter as much again as last year, and next year the number will be larger still.

This emphasises the need for much more careful training in safety of young people, throughout industry, as was indicated by my hon. Friends in their speeches. It also emphasises the need to have another look at the hours of work of young people. The T.U.C. has made approaches to the Minister on this problem, that the maximum hours of work of young people should be reduced. There is a connection between the rate of industrial accidents and the hours worked, and that should be studied.

There are many other things one would like to say about this problem, but in view of the passage of time I will say no more now. I suggest to the Parliamentary Secretary that what we all expect from him and the Government are bold and constructive measures related to the seriousness of the problem.

2.55 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour (Mr. Alan Green)

I am sure the whole House is grateful to the hon. Members for raising the subject of industrial accidents this afternoon. I particularly welcome discussion of this very important matter, and I shall do my best in the time I have to reply to what has been said.

I can first say this, that there is no difference within this House about the seriousness of the accident rate in industry; no difference at all. The proper subject for discussion is not whether the matter is serious, but what is precisely the right way to go about getting an improvement. That is where entirely legitimate fields of discussion arise.

I hope to offer some of the statistical information for which I have been asked, but if I were to give it all I think we should be here a very long time, and perhaps I can do best by making this offer to hon. Members—I will most willingly at any time, by interview or by letter or by any other appropriate means, give very readily any information which I can in this field. I hope that with this promise I may hereafter be forgiven if I fail to give this afternoon any particular statistic for which I have been asked. This will allow me perhaps to get more to the principles of what we are discussing, rather than to get lost in the details.

One point has been clearly brought out—and again this is a matter on which we can all agree, and I am very glad of it and anxious to add my voice to it—and that is that hon. Members have explicitly and implicitly recognised the value of the work done by Her Majesty's Factory Inspectors. I am delighted that I myself can join in the tribute to the work they do. They have a tremendously long tradition; a terrific working knowledge of the day to day administration of the legislation which exists; and they enjoy, despite a sometimes rather difficult task, the great good will of both sides of industry—and it is of course most important that they should have this.

The hon. and learned Member for West Ham, South (Mr. Elwyn Jones) was quite right when he said that the increase of industrial accidents during 1960 was a source of very great concern, and my right hon. Friend has, as I think the House well knows, gone a very long way out of his way to publicise this very serious matter. I certainly do not think he can be accused of being in any way complacent or idle about it. It cannot be denied that 1960 was a thoroughly bad year from the accident point of view, and I certainly would not seek to say it was anything else. All of us, both inside and outside the House, must do our level best to see that industry is made safer for all who work in it.

All three hon. Members who have spoken consider that the best means of dealing with the rising accident total would be to increase the Factory Inspectorate—I think it was suggested that it should be doubled and that, as a further requirement, all employers should appoint a safety committee in every workplace. We are very much alive to the vital importance of enforcing the requirements of the Factories Acts. But in the nature of things, as the hon. and learned Member pointed out, the Inspectorate, even double, treble or quadruple its present size, could not be, so to speak, omnipresent; it could not be all the time at a place of work before an accident happened. One cannot get a cure-all by an increase in the size of the Inspectorate. The fact is that it is continually under review in a positive sense, as illustrated by the fact that since 1956 the increase in the size of the Inspectorate has been 25 per cent., the latest increase will be a further 8 per cent. Hon. Members quoted the number of the general inspectors as between 320 and 330. Following the latest increase in the strength, the number will be 393 in the general 'Inspectorate branch and some 87 in the specialist branch.

We can say, therefore, that we are alive to the need for an inspectorate large enough to fulfil its important functions, but there is a limit to the speed and to the size by which an Inspectorate of this kind can be increased if its essential characteristics are to be maintained and not diluted. That is a very important consideration. We cannot just double the number overnight and expect to get the same quality of work out of a vastly and rapidly expanded service.

I am sure that hon. Members agree—and I emphasise this point—that, in discussions of this kind, it would be a pity if there went out from the House any sort of suggestion that this was a readily solvable problem. It needs very much more than the Inspectorate itself to get the matter right.

The second suggestion was that employers should be compelled to have safety committees. We do not want to underestimate the value of these committees. Indeed we are very much in favour of them, as I hope to show. But it is our opinion that in this matter compulsion is not the answer. With a safety committee, the important thing is to bring together people of enthusiasm and drive, and not merely set up a committee for the sake of having a committee. I maintain that neither hon. Members opposite nor I want a sort of paper exercise. We want a realistic conscientious and continuing drive by industry itself. That is what we are really after. In order to secure that, we believe that we must harness voluntary effort and enthusiasm. We do not deny—indeed, we have added to the number of regulations recently—that in certain areas and at certain times regulations are necessary. But we are very anxious not to drive out of existence the necessary voluntary effort within industry itself by too great an amount of regulation. I think that all of us are aware of the danger of doing this unless we are very careful.

What are we doing to try to harness industry's own enthusiasm for industry's own protection? After discussions with the British Employers' Confederation and the T.U.C., we are engaged in an approach to a number of important industries drawing attention to the seriousness of the accident problem and the proved value of accident prevention machinery. We hope that, as a result of these approaches there will be far more accident prevention machinery in industry than there is today. We intend that the Government shall play their part in giving advice and direct help through the Factory Inspectorate.

We have chosen this method because we think that accident prevention can best be approached on an industry by industry basis, so that those who have the same technical problems may consider them together and work out solutions suitable to a specific field of technical application. We think that this kind of self-help is likely to be much more effective in combating accidents, and, incidentally in setting up the kind of machinery which hon. Members have mentioned, than any other method, and we shall certainly not rest content until we are convinced that this fact has sunk in throughout industry. What we want is a great increase in safety consciousness on the part of all who work in industry, whether employer or employee.

It is not possible, as the hon. Member for East Ham, North (Mr. Prentice) said, to compel people to be safety minded. That, in a sense, is a sad truth. It would be much easier if it were possible to achieve, by regulation, a change in the attitude of employers—who are of course primarily responsible—and work people. We all know many cases where the old "familiarity breeds contempt" attitude is taken, when, for instance, necessary safety clothing simply ceases to be worn by people who become so certain that the bullet will never strike them but always the chap next door.

Thus, it is from everybody engaged in industry that we want a continuing and actively conscious attitude towards safety. As the House is probably aware, no less than 65 per cent. of all accidents reported in 1960 arose from simple human errors such as falling, clumsy handling, or letting hammers drop. In other words, 65 per cent. of all this distressing total arises from straightfoward carelessness and clumsiness.

I am not taking bad luck as a good excuse for a high accident rate. Carelessness is a main cause, but it is not the only cause of this horrible industrial accident rate. I agree that it is of the greatest importance that employers and work people should get together to discuss safety and that the safety committee has an important part to play in this. I was asked for figures on this subject. As a result of a count which we have completed we find that the total number of safety committees operating in 1961 was 2,274. There were during the same period 4,000 factories which had safety officers. Without going into the enormous mass of detail which I have, I can say that it is clear that the larger factories more frequently have safety committees and safety officers than the small ones. This, of course, is what one would expect to find. We should like to see more of them and I hope that the publicity provided by this debate will give some impetus towards their creation.

Dr. Stross

I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not finish without talking about co-operation between Government Departments, who ought to do their duty.

Mr. Green

I hope not to keep the House too long but I want to refer to the building and civil engineering industries where the position is extremely serious. These industries represent one-eighth of those which come under the Factory Acts and account for one-third of fatal accidents.

My right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour has recently made two important new codes of regulations which for the first time cover the construction industries as a whole. Further codes are being prepared. It is therefore reasonable to claim that the Government are making an active move into this field, as we have been asked to do. We are already doing it and I have had informal talks with some of the representatives of both sides of these industries. A meeting of the Joint Advisory Committee on Safety and Health in the Building and Civil Engineering Industries, of which I am chairman, is arranged for 30th January. Therefore, we are genuinely doing a lot more in this direction than we are sometimes credited with doing.

But we want to make a reality of the regulations. We just do not want a paper exercise. My personal concern therefore is to try to secure that when the regulations come into force they are complied with in an effective fashion. This, of course, is not always very simple. There are difficulties for employers and employees in these matters and I will do my best to see that these difficulties are overcome.

I want to refer to co-operation between Government Departments, with particular reference to the position for young people—which is serious. Earlier this year the Minister of Education brought the matter once again to the attention of local education authorities, particularly in connection with safety training at schools and technical colleges. I am confident that this will have useful results, but it is just as important to remember that safety training should be continued when young people go from schools or technical colleges for the first time into factories. Employers should recognise their special responsibility for giving induction training to young entrants. We are all agreed about this. There is nothing like "kerb" drill, as it were, at an early age for getting into the good habits which will last a lifetime.

I agree that certain matters raised by the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Dr. Stross) about the collection of statistics, their analysis, and the use that may be made of them are extremely important. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will accept my assurance this afternoon that we are not overlooking what the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance, in conjunction with ourselves and others, may be able to do about this.

I hope that I have covered the matters of principle which I started out to do without delving too much into detail on this very detailed subject.

Perhaps I might conclude by quoting from the 1956 Report of the Industrial Safety Sub-Committee of the National Joint Advisory Council a passage which seems to me to sum up the position: Invaluable as legislation and other enforcement work of the Factory Department must continue to be, the standards of safety reached in industry depend mainly on the efforts made at all levels within industry itself to prevent accidents. To secure a further substantial reduction in the incidence of accidents, there must be more vigorous, more extensive, more sustained, better organised, and better informed voluntary action by everyone in industry—Planners, designers, managers, technicians, research workers, supervisors and workers all have an important contribution to make. The idea of considering safety in all aspects of industrial activity must so permeate industry that everybody will find his opportunity, in his ordinary clay-to-day work, to make industry a safer place. This is what I devoutly hope will happen, and it is to that end that my right hon. Friend is directing some strenuous and conscientious effort.