HEALTH AND SAFETY AT WORK ETC. (AMENDMENT) (Hansard, 22 October 1975)

§ Mr. Doug Hoyle (Nelson and Colne)

I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to amend Section 14 of the Health and Safety at Work etc., Act 1974, and for connected purposes. I realise that in asking the House to grant me leave to introduce this Bill at this late stage in the Session I cannot expect the Bill to be passed before Parliament is prorogued. I bring the Bill forward because I believe that the procedures embodied in it are sufficiently important for them to be put into print. I hope that once that is done the Government will consider such procedures when considering legislation for the next Session.

My Bill is the result of co-operation between the parliamentary committees of ASTMS and the Transport and General Workers' Union. The reasons for this will become clear as I explain the purpose behind the Bill. I thank both of those committees for giving me the opportunity of introducing the Bill. It arises directly out of the Flixborough disaster of 1st June 1974 and the court of inquiry which followed that disaster.

The court of inquiry was directed by the Secretary of State for Employment under Section 84 of the Factories Act 1961. By directing it under that Act my right hon. Friend gave the court of inquiry the right not only to dictate its own procedures but also the right to choose the method by which those who were interested in the hearing should present their evidence to the court.

The court in its discretion decided that it would accept evidence only from parties who were legally represented. My union, ASTMS, submitted at that point that that could cause great hardship to small unions. My union lost two people in the disaster, while the TGWU lost more. Such a ruling by the court, it was claimed, could inhibit people from bringing forward their evidence because of the financial hardship they would suffer through having to be legally represented. The court overruled that submission.

The ASTMS and the TGWU considered the matters involved to be so important—in view of the numbers who 484 had been killed and seriously injured—that it was absolutely vital for the unions to be represented at the inquiry. Because of that we submitted a joint legal submission to the court. The court of inquiry found that the cause of the disaster was the fracture of a pipe connecting two reactors and that the explosion had resulted therefrom. Both of the reactors concerned were filled with steam-heated cyclohexane which was boiled by chemical processes in the individual reactor. Cyclohexane is akin to petrol in its chemical composition. It was being heated in the reactors to twice its normal boiling point.

I quote from the report of the court of inquiry, giving the reasons it found for the bursting of the bridging pipe. It said: The fact that the bridging of the gap presented design problems was not appreciated by anybody at Nypro with the result that there was no proper design study, no proper consideration of the need for support, no safety testing, no reference to the relevant British Standard and no reference to the boiler manufacturers 'design guide'. These, the court of inquiry agreed, were all the responsibility of Nypro (UK) Ltd., the users of the plant. Despite the fact that Nypro was the guilty party, the unions and their members, who were found by the court to bear no responsibility for the disaster, were required to pay the cost of their representation. ASTMS and the TGWU were faced with legal costs amounting to over £23,000, plus £2,000 representing VAT.

To protect our members' interests it was necessary for us to be represented legally from the beginning of the hearing because unless we were so represented the court was not prepared to release to us any of the preliminary documents which would have shown whether any of our members were affected. The court allowed ASTMS, the TGWU and the British Association of Colliery Management—the three trade unions most concerned—to be represented on the ground that they or their members could be prejudicially affected during the course of the inquiry.

It has always been the contention of my association that the inquiry into the disaster should have been held, at any rate in the first place, not under the Factories Act but under the Boiler Explosions Act 1882. I shall not worry 485 the House with the technical argument about that. Suffice it to say we argued the case for this at a preliminary hearing. If the inquiry had been conducted under the Boiler Explosions Act, different provisions on the awarding of costs would have applied.

It would appear that since the Flixborough disaster the Secretary of State for Employment has had Section 84 of the Factories Act 1961 and Sections 6 and 7 of the Boiler Explosions Act repealed, and that the only legislation under which future courts of inquiry will be held into disasters such as Flixborough is the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974. The object of this short Bill is to write into that Act provisions which were previously contained in the Boiler Explosions Act, providing for the payment of costs in certain circumstances by both the Government and the persons responsible for the explosion.

I hope that at some time in the future there will be an opportunity for the House to discuss the report of the inquiry into the Flixborough disaster in greater detail. But the principle I am trying to establish in the Bill is very important in itself. Its establishment would enable unions, irrespective of their size and financial resources, to take part as they should in public inquiries into disasters such as Flixborough, without the risk of having to pay enormous sums by way of costs for so doing.