HC Deb 20 June 1969 vol 785 cc960-70

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Ernest G. Perry.]

4.6 p.m.

Mr. Walter Clegg (North Fylde)

My original intention in asking for a debate on the effects on the building industry of British Standard Time were twofold. First, I thought it was only right that the House should be told of the effect British Standard Time is having on the lives of those working in the building industry. Secondly, I hoped at that time to induce the Government to do away with a further winter's experiment. On the second matter I have been rather overtaken by events, because the Home Secretary announced in the House yesterday that the Government intend to proceed with the full experiment. That decision disappoints me. Those in the industry have used harsher words and have said that to them the decision is deplorable.

It will be difficult for me to change the Government's mind at this stage, but I still think that it is advisable that the House should know the effect that its legislation has on the lives of many people. Therefore, the debate may be of value in that respect. As the Government have been known to change their mind at times, even at the thirteenth hour, I still live in some hope.

As the Minister is well aware, a detailed study has been made by the National Federation of Building Trades Employers on the effect over the winter months of November, December and January. This was presented to the National Consultative Council of the Building and Civil Engineering Industries, of which at that time the present Patronage Secretary was the Chairman. It was sent by him to the Home Secretary, who spoke highly of the Report. The Minister of Public Building and Works commended the Report to the House by saying that it was a cogent, well-substantiated and objective report which would carry full weight in the present assessment."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 10th June, 1969; Vol. 784, c. 1212.] That having been said, I hope that it will be fair for me to deal mostly with the conclusions that the Report reached rather than the detail lying behind those conclusions.

The Report mentions various factors. The main factors I take to be safety, productivity, costs, and last, but by no means least, and in my view possibly the most important, the effect B.S.T. has had on the lives of those working in the industry, because this in turn affects the other three factors.

I want to be very careful what I say about the question of safety. I do not in any way want to cause any alarm to the relatives of those working in the industry, because that would be unfair. The statistics which have been made available to me show that in the third quarter of last year there was a rising safety factor. In the fourth quarter the safety factor began to decline.

I do not want to push these arguments too far. Perhaps the Minister has later figures on this. I believe 64 firms said that they had more difficulty with safety and that another 25 said that safety had improved. Therefore, on the safety factor of British Standard Time I would think that nothing definite at this stage can be proved because it would be difficult to say, if there has been an increase in accidents, that it was due to British Standard Time. Undoubtedly there is a factor involved, most on unlit sites where in the dark hours accidents can more easily happen. Therefore, as to safety, it is an important factor but not a decisive factor at the moment.

I will now turn to the question of productivity and cost which I will take together. I regret to have to bore the House with statistics, but I think these are important to give us some measure of the effect. From the report it was clear that productivity went down and cost went up. I should like to deal with the matter of productivity in two ways, first with the lit sites and then with the unlit sites, because it is important that we should see the contrast between the two. Of 540 firms operating lit sites, 26 reported increased production. Of the rest, 108 reported a loss of up to 5 per cent., 145 reported a loss of between 6 and 10 per cent., 54 reported a loss of between 11 and 15 per cent., and 21 over 15 per cent.

As to unlit sites, 25 out of 575 showed increased production; 101 firms reported a loss in production of up to 5 per cent.; 188 reported a loss of between 6 and 10 per cent.; 108 11 to 15 per cent. and 44 a loss of over 15 per cent. I should have thought that the difference between the lit sites and the unlit sites would have been greater than that. I think the important deduction that we can draw from those figures is that even on the lit sites in winter, working with British Standard Time, there is an appreciable loss of production.

Turning to costs, the lit jobs showed emphatically higher costs. Out of 495 firms, 334 experienced increased costs varying between 5 per cent. and over 15 per cent. In unlit jobs the position was even worse, showing the same sort of variations but many more firms being in the higher bracket. Even on lit sites there is a rise in costs due, we believe, to British Standard Time. The effect of higher costs and decreased production is self-evident. It means that in the end the man in the street is paying more for what the builders are producing.

I now come to what I believe to be the most important factor in considering whether the experiment should continue, and that is the effect it has had on those who work in the industry. From my own experience in my Northern constituency and from reports that I have received, it is clear that British Standard Time is not popular with those who work with it. It is not popular with the workers for several reasons. First, they have much greater difficulty getting to work because they are travelling to work later and competing with white collar workers and school children for public transport. If they go by private car they are creating more traffic on the roads, leading to traffic jams and delay.

Apart from the safety difficulties, one of the main factors seems to be that morning work on building sites is more productive than afternoon work. When a man is fresh in the morning he works harder, and in the cold weather he likes to keep warm. But his production slows in the afternoon, especially in very bad weather. As a result of British Standard Time, working hours, which almost universally began at 8 a.m., have now been shifted in various parts of the country so as to start at 8.30 or 8.45, which has meant late finishing and has disrupted the pattern of life of many workers.

At a recent meeting of the operatives' association, a resolution was passed to the effect that building work should start not later than 8 a.m. throughout the year. If that were adopted, there would be a tremendous rise in costs. Mr. William Doughty of Liverpool, in giving reasons for adopting the resolution, said that the advent of British Standard Time had not only created a fair amount of chaos in industry but was also disrupting family life. Time and again in the reports which one has received and the Federation has received the disruption of family life due to the change in working hours has figured as a potent factor, as is, I think, reflected in the productivity figures.

Here are some of the comments which people in the industry have made—not my comments, since their words are more direct, this being an industry which uses pretty direct words. First, a small contractor in Sussex says: Our experience of this winter is wasted time, increased costs, lower output and unhappy workpeople and, therefore, more harrassed managers. In 40 years in the industry, the writer has never experienced such a miserable and frustrating winter. A contractor in Yorkshire, with true Yorkshire bluntness, speaks in these terms: The time is 9.30 a.m., and it is still dark. Our country is in debt, and here we are encouraging people to stay in bed. What a crack-pot way of going on. We suggest that you invite some of the instigators of this daft idea of extending B.S.T. throughout the year to spend a few days at a small or medium sized building firm. I am sure they would soon change their minds. That sort of reaction is general.

What can be done at this stage? I press the Minister about it. Would it be possible to reconsider the imposition of British Standard Time in the two critical months of December and January, as opposed to the complete period? It is in those two months that most of the difficulties seem to be concentrated and in which most of the losses are incurred. I plead with the right hon. Gentleman, even at this late stage, to reconsider the matter. The building industry is important, though it is not the only one affected. The National Farmers' Union is finding growing resistance to British Standard Time because of increased costs.

The other figures which have been taken into account, and which seem to have priority in the Home Secretary's mind, come from road transport. With respect, the January figures were in no way encouraging, and there will still be a great problem in the coming winter since last winter, at least during the period about which I am talking, was unusually mild.

I earnestly urge the Government to reconsider the matter even at this stage.

4.18 p.m.

The Minister of Public Building and Works (Mr. John Silkin)

The House is grateful to the hon. Member for North Fylde (Mr. Clegg) for the very moderate and reasonable way in which he presented his case. I hope that the hon. Gentleman, although my right hon. Friend came to the decision he did and announced it to the House yesterday, will not feel that his words or the words of the N.F.B.T.E. are not being given their full weight. They are. But the basis of an experiment is that a period of time is required to see exactly how the experiment is going.

I believe that my right hon. Friend was right to commend the way the report of the N.F.B.T.E. was presented. It was presented very fully and, again, with considerable moderation. If, as the hon. Gentleman says, the building industry sometimes uses phraseology, which provides synonyms in calling a spade a spade, it did it moderately in this case.

There are one or two points of their evidence on which I should like, if not to differ, at least to point out that there are differences of opinion about them, and if I might take the same basis as the hon. Gentleman did, if I can keep to his headings, I shall endeavour to explain what I mean.

The first question raised by the hon. Gentleman, and I thought he did it very fairly, was that of safety. He said that the conclusion he had reached was that the evidence about accidents in the building industry was important but not decisive. I assume that he takes the same view as I do, which is that one swallow does not make a British summer time. We have only one year's figures to go on. We know that conditions in British winters tend to flucuate, and that accidents tend to fluctuate with the British winters.

I should like to quote a few figures, because I think they underline the point made by the hon. Gentleman, and with which I agree. If one takes the last quarter of 1968 and the first quarter of 1969, which are in effect the winter months, as against the last quarter of 1967 and the first quarter of 1968 one finds that the killed and injured amounted to 23,410 against 24,011. It can fairly be argued that the labour force itself was reduced, and therefore it would be not altogether fair to say that there had been a drop in accidents, and I accept that.

If one then examines the accidents which have occurred as a percentage of the labour force, one finds that there has been a marginal increase in those two quarters as against the two quarters preceding when B.S.T. was not in operation, but it is so marginal as really not to be of statistical significance. It amounts to 0.02 per cent. Expressed in a proportion, it is 2.33 per cent., as against 2.31 per cent., and I think that this underlines what the hon. Gentleman and I both believe to be the case from the point of view of safety.

I come, now, to the second point, that of productivity and costs. I do not dispute the evidence submitted by the N.F.B.T.E. It seems that a case has been made that there has been a lowering of productivity, and a consequent, because that is what it is, increase in costs. But there are two points which one should consider in relation to this finding. The first important point is that again this is an experiment of one winter. The figures may not necessarily be borne out in a different kind of winter. If one considers last winter, one can look at it with some favour for part of the time, but undoubtedly towards the end, and indeed in those critical months about which the hon. Gentleman was talking, the weather changed. It became very bad from a building point of view. Therefore, how much of this was due to the winter conditions themselves, and how much was due to the introduction of B.S.T., one does not really know. I do not want to be dogmatic about it either way. My point is that one winter is not sufficient to judge.

There is another factor, too. My right hon. Friend foresaw that there might be a drop in productivity. He thought only a marginal drop, and I suggest that if one takes all the considerations into account one sees that the drop has been marginal, and that the industry can to some extent be congratulated on having met very changed circumstances.

That brings me to the third point made by the hon. Gentleman, the unpopularity of B.S.T. with workers, and the disruption of family life. I accept the point made by the hon. Gentleman, but does not this rather argue a need—it is a need in all industry; there is no question about it—to adjust itself to changed conditions?

Against a disturbance of rhythm—the words used by the N.F.B.T.E.; I understand the point—we have to have the twice-yearly ritual of changing hours and changing clocks. I do not know whether the hon. Member's clocks, like mine, are electric, but if so, instead of putting the clocks on one hour or back one hour, as in the old days, we have to put them forward one hour or forward 23 hours, otherwise something goes wrong with them.

Apart from changing the clocks there is the disruption of family life. This is a fairly normal consideration. We must judge and balance these two points, of the disturbance of rhythm and putting the clocks forwards or backwards.

My final point on the N.F.B.T.E. report concerns winter building. The hon. Member quoted a builder from Sussex who talked about a "miserable and frustrating winter." I believe that it was, but I am not certain how much was due to British Standard Time and how much to the winter itself. Whether we like it or not the winter is here to stay, and it may be miserable and frustrating—and for a good part of last winter it was miserable and frustrating.

I do not want to labour the point. There is undoubtedly an argument here, and I do not want to dismiss it. I merely say that we should see the experiment through, and that we should do so with another winter. None of us can foresee what sort it will be, but it may be less miserable and frustrating—climatically, at any rate.

I am a new Minister but one thing that I have seen is the enormous need for the appreciation of new techniques in the building industry. The industry does very well, and adapts itself remarkably well. It was the first of all industries to appreciate the importance of metrication and to go for it. But in respect of winter building it needs to go a great deal further. I am pleased to see my Department encouraging new techniques. I am sure that the hon. Member would agree with me that it has played quite a part in this.

I hope that that part of the N.F.B.T.E.'s worries, and the worries of the gentleman from Sussex, relating to the severity of the winter will to some extent be overcome if the industry accepts the fact that the British winter is a great deal worse than we sometimes think. In any event, whether or not British Standard Time plays its part, this is a continuing problem, and I hope that the industry will respond.

It is too early to make a complete and absolute judgment in this case. With great respect to the building industry—and I regard its attitude as fair, moderate and in all senses public-spirited, in that it has spoken not only for the employers but the men—my right hon. Friend has to judge not only by the effects on the building industry. The hon. Member mentioned the farmers. That is another aspect to be considered. In coming to his final assessment my right hon. Friend has to weigh up all the facts as he sees them at the end of the relevant period and not in the middle of the period.

Like me, the hon. Gentleman was perturbed by the January figures for road accidents. I do not know what conclusions have been reached. Yesterday, my right hon. Friend was fair enough to say that he was not in a position to judge of them, one way or another. How much of the severity of the accidents in January was due to the bad weather we had then I do not know. I notice that in the relevant hours, between 7 o'clock and 9 o'clock in the morning and 4 o'clock and 6 o'clock in the evening, in December the rate of accidents declined by 5 per cent. comparatively. They declined by 137 in December, but were up by 152 in January.

One can make anything one wants of statistics. That is what politicians sometimes tend to do. But at least if one adds up the figures, one will find that there has been a net decrease in the number of road accidents during these hours. I do not want to make any point and my right hon. Friend did not, but if there is a point to be made, it is that it is too early to make an assessment and that a further period is needed before we can reach a final conclusion.

The industry has among its members many responsible, public-spirited and moderate people. If at the end of the experiment—and this is purely hypothetical, but I am trying to show what sort of assessment my right hon. Friend may have to make—we concluded that there was a loss in productivity, an increase in costs, in the building industry, that the safety situation was virtually the same and not decisive, but that for the country as a whole there were great advantages, that, for example, road accidents had declined because of the advent of British Summer Time, that the business of the community as a whole had increased and that British Standard Time was popular outside the industry concerned, what would be the right course for my right hon. Friend to follow?

I hope that I carry the hon. Gentleman with me when I say that it would be impossible to have two kinds of time. We could not have British Construction Time and British Standard Time. In that case, it would be to the advantage of the community to go ahead, even though for this industry there might be disadvantages. That does not mean that I hope that those disadvantages, if they existed, would not be marginal, but if that were the test, we would have to judge by the advantage to the community as a whole.

That is why this is so difficult a choice for my right hon. Friend and that is why he has the right to be given a chance to look at the whole pattern and to decide as he will, to make his judgment of Solomon, with all the facts at his disposal at the time which is statistically relevant and statistically sound.

I said at the beginning of my speech that the hon. Gentleman and the N.F.B.T.E. were right to raise this subpect and I have no quarrel with them. I hope that their evidence, but not their evidence alone, will play its part in the final assessment which my right hon. Friend will make.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-seven minutes to Five o'clock.