HC Deb 25 July 1980 vol 989 cc990-1005 1.18 pm
The Under-Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. Patrick Mayhew)

I beg to move, That this House takes note of European Community Document 11571/79 and Addendum 1 for a Council Directive on the protection of workers from harmful exposure to metallic lead and its ionic compounds at work and welcomes the Government's intention to support appropriate measures for the control of persons' exposure to lead at work. This document is a proposal for a Council directive, and was the subject of the explanatory memorandum to Parliament dated 26 February 1980. The Select Committee on European legislation recommended that it should be further considered by the House. Substantive discussions on this proposal have only recently begun in the Council social affairs working group.

I shall first describe how the draft directive originates, and how it would take effect, and then outline the Government's proposed response to it.

The proposal is based on article 100 of the Treaty of Rome and arises from the Community programme on safety and health at work. Its purpose is to improve the protection of workers against occupational risks arising from harmful exposure to lead. It is proposed to establish common standards which would then form the basis of member States' own regulation and control of such exposure. It is the first of the special directives to be proposed under the directive on the protection of workers from exposure to harmful chemical, physical and biological agents at work, which was agreed by the Council of Ministers on 9 June and debated in the House on 26 March this year.

It would take effect in this way. The provisions of the draft directive will apply wherever, with the exception of sea and air transport, there is a risk of a worker absorbing lead. This is contained in article 2. Reference or threshold levels to determine whether such risk exists are given in annex 1. The term "lead" is used to refer specifically to metallic lead and any of its ionic compounds. Covalent lead compounds such as tetra alkyl lead compounds which are used as petrol additives are excluded from its scope.

The directive would establish limits for the exposure of workers to airborne lead, and further limits for the amount of lead in the blood. The lead in air and lead in blood limits would be mere guidelines at first, but from 1985 they would become more stringent and mandatory.

The Commission could, in the case of certain industrial activities listed in annex 3, extend until 1989 the time by which the more stringent limit values have to be met. Those activities are lead mining, smelting, refining and producing, and the manufacture of batteries.

The proposal also sets out certain criteria for air monitoring and health surveillance, including biological monitoring. Lead is especially dangerous to the developing foetus. What are called "workers of child-bearing capacity", which is scarcely a euphemism, are treated as a special case in the directive. More stringent limits are proposed for use in their biological monitoring, and workers who are confirmed as being pregnant are not to be exposed to the risk of absorbing lead at work at all.

Finally, the draft directive requires the provision of information to workers, and of respiratory protection, protective clothing, washing facilities and clothing accommodation.

I turn to the Government's proposed response.

General provisions for achieving the health and safety of persons at work already exist in the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974. In addition, relevant statutory provisions specific to protection against the effects of lead exist in the Factories Act 1961 and regulations made under it. The specific provisions are out of date and fragmented. Accordingly, they cover only a limited range of lead industries, they cover obsolete processes and are difficult to enforce, and they do not make full provision for modern monitoring techniques.

New regulations and an approved code of practice for the control of lead at work in draft form and designed to replace this out-of-date legislation have been the subject of extensive public consultation between industry, the trade unions, the Health and Safety Executive and Gov- ernment Departments during the past three to four years and are currently with my right hon. Friend. This proposed domestic legislation would, if adopted, provide an adequate legislative framework for implementing the proposed directive. The general safeguards required by the two sets of proposals correspond because they are based on the same occupational hygiene principles. The limit values proposed for use initially under the directive are similar to those in the proposed United Kingdom legislation, but the proposed mandatory standards for 1985 are much more stringent than the United Kingdom proposals.

We accordingly support the objective and principle of this directive, but have reservations on the levels of the limits proposed and their points of application. We will develop these during the negotiations on the directive with the objective of gaining agreement on the changes that we think necessary.

The Government have consulted closely a number of bodies on the draft directive, principally the CBI, the TUC, the Lead Development Association, other trade associations and the HSC.

One major area of concern is the Commission's proposal to introduce mandatory limit values from 1985 which are more stringent than those which have been accepted during our own consultative process. The Commission is proposing that the amount of lead in the blood of any individual worker should not be allowed to exceed 60 micrograms of lead per 100 millilitres of blood and that the concentration of airborne lead in the breathing zone of workers should not be allowed to exceed 100 micrograms of lead per cubic metre of air, calculated as a time-weighted average over a 40-hour week. For our part, we subscribe to the establishment of mandatory limits, but take the view that such limits should be based on clearly established evidence about the threshold of clinical effects, and we believe that difficulties arise in that connection.

It is common ground that lead is a ubiquitous element and that we all absorb lead to a greater or lesser extent from our natural surroundings. In the normal course, lead is excreted almost as fast as it is absorbed. But if the absorption rate occurs much faster than it can be excreted, a build-up will occur in the body and a range of metabolic functions can be affected.

The interpretation of these effects in relation to health is by no means clear. For example, even at very low levels, well within the range found among people not occupationally exposed to lead, there are effects on certain enzymes, but no recognised effects detrimental to health.

The medical advice available to us is that it is rare for any clinical effects to be observed in adults below a blood lead level of 80 micrograms per 100 millilitres. Under the provisions of the directive the significance of a blood lead limit is that if a person's blood lead level exceeds that limit he would have to be temporarily suspended from work with lead until his blood lead level dropped below the limit. The Government's view is that until evidence of detriment to health suggests otherwise, the level at which a person is mandatorily suspended from work should be no lower than a blood lead level of 80 micrograms per 100 millilitres.

As regards the limit set for airborne lead, it is logical that this should be such that if exposure is kept within the limit it will not give rise to blood lead levels that will reach 80 micrograms per 100 millilitres. Experience has shown, and it is generally accepted, that an air lead limit of 150 micrograms per cubic metre correlates to a blood level of about 60 micrograms per 100 millilitres, and this limit for airborne lead is what we intend to propose.

There is further concern about the lack of flexibility in the limit values proposed. For example, it is well known that in considering the effect of exposure to lead account has to be taken of variables such as solubility and particle size, which can affect the rate of lead absorption into the body. We are advised by the Health and Safety Commission that, in consequence of this, flexibility is needed in the application of limits for lead in air, and for this reason we could not accept an inflexible limit of 150 micrograms per cubic metre of air for all airborne lead.

There is, however, a further important consideration. Even if the Government were able to agree the Commission's proposed mandatory limits now, we are ad- vised that it is not feasible to implement them in all industries by 1985, as time would be needed to design, construct, commission, and in some cases research and develop new equipment with which to do so. In recognition of this fact, the Commission has proposed a system whereby it could grant extensions of time for certain industries on application by a member State.

There are, however, considerable disadvantages in such a system. It could create unfair trading conditions as between member States and unnecessary administrative burdens, but, most importantly, it is the Government's view that if there is a health risk at the more stringent limits set out at article 8, all industry should abide by those limits. If there is no clear health risk, these more stringent values should be advisory rather than mandatory.

The other major area of concern is in relation to the level of risk at which certain control measures become applicable. As I have said, the directive will apply wherever there is a risk of a worker absorbing lead, and in annex 1 reference or threshold levels for determining risk in terms of airborne lead and blood lead are given. If these reference levels are exceeded, all the provisions of the directive are at once to apply, including those which require regular monitoring of blood levels and of levels of airborne lead. Whereas immediate application may well be warranted in the case of matters such as the provision of information to workers, or the provision of washing facilities, a much more selective approach to the use of resources, and, indeed, to the imposition of onerous obligations is, in our view, merited in other matters.

The Commission's proposal here will mean that a great deal of such monitoring will have to be carried out where there is exposure to lead only at low levels, where there is no likelihood of adverse effects on health and no need for any further action arising from the monitoring results. We have had practical experience of these matters in the United Kingdom for many years, and the medical evidence available indicates this to be unnecessary for the protection of workers' health.

It is, therefore, our view that less stringent, but equally effective, reference levels should be set as the thresholds for regular mandatory monitoring, and that we should rely primarily on sampling of airborne lead, based on an eight-hour sampling time, to identify areas where regular monitoring, thereafter, will be required, and not use blood lead sampling for this purpose. Our proposals, which are reflected in the draft domestic regulations, would accordingly impose little or no cost on industry until exposure reaches a significant level, which is defined as a lead-in-air level of 75 micrograms per cubic metre. That is half the maximum permitted airborne lead level.

Under the Commission's proposals as they stand, not only would blood lead monitoring be required in all cases at very low levels of exposure to lead; there would need to be a second biological test for the determination of amino-laevulinic acid in urine. Our view is that only one biological test would be mandatory. This would serve as adequate screening, conserve resources, would in no way inhibit further tests being carried out in appropriate cases, and would not lessen the degree of protection afforded to workers. We propose, therefore, to seek amendment of the draft directive on all these points.

I should say a word about the special position of women. Under our existing statutory provisions for lead, and under international convention, women are prohibited from work in certain lead processes. These provisions date from the time when lead exposure levels were generally higher than they are today, and abortions and other troubles were known to be associated with them. The principal concern at the present time, however, is not with the effect of today's lower levels of lead exposure on women per se, but of any possible harmful effect on the foetus in the event of pregnancy occurring in a female worker in lead. Lead, even in relatively low doses, is now widely credited with having a harmful effect on the central nervous system of the young child, and lead is known to cross the placental barrier so that foetal blood lead levels reach maternal blood lead levels.

We therefore agreed in principle with the proposals in the draft directive, which would require a worker of child-bearing capacity to be suspended from work which exposes her to lead when her blood lead concentration exceeds 40 micrograms per 100 millilitres. This is the upper limit of blood lead concentrations found in people who are not occupationally exposed to lead. Our proposed regulations require that no pregnant woman should do work in which she is exposed to the risk of absorbing lead.

There is one last matter of importance with which I should deal. I have already referred to new draft regulations and a draft approved code of practice for the control of lead at work which, after very wide consultation over three and a half years have lately been submitted to my right hon. Friend by the Health and Safety Commission. These documents are basically compatible with the Commission's proposals in this draft directive, but they do, as will be supposed reflect the Government's views on the matters which I have already mentioned.

The question arises whether our domestic proposals should be held back until negotiations on the directive are completed. We believe the disadvantages of delay to be greater than the advantages and that it is better to go ahead with our own proposals and the revision of the existing domestic legislation, which is considered both by the lead industry and the trades unions to be long overdue. The new regulations and approved code of practice provide an adequate legislative framework for implementing the proposed directive, and are wholly in keeping with the spirit in which the Commission has made its proposals. To proceed would conform with the Commission's desire to promote progress, not to inhibit it, and ensure that the benefit of the extensive consultation which has been carried out over the past three and a half years is soonest enjoyed. The Government therefore feel that it is right to proceed with the secondary legislation proposed, and they will shortly bring it forward.

I therefore commend to the House the Government's policy that the objective and principle of the European draft directive should be supported, but that it would be appropriate for the amendments on the issues to which I have referred to be agreed before the directive is presented for adoption.

1.33 pm
Mr. John Grant (Islington, Central)

It would be churlish and foolish not to welcome the directive. It is the first individual directive to be proposed under the draft framework on the protection of workers from harmful exposure to chemical, physical and biological agents. It covers about 1 million workers throughout the Community and gives better protection wherever there is a risk of absorbing lead at work. Clearly, it is a major step forward.

It is a major step for Britain because, as the Government recognise, the Factories Acts provisions against the effects of lead are well out of date. The Health and Safety Commission has proposed its own new draft regulations and code of practice, and there have been lengthy consultations with industry. The HSC's agreed final proposals have been approved by the Secretary of State, although the Minister simply said that they were with the Secretary of State.

The Government believe that they should go ahead without waiting for the implementation of the directive. That being so, I am surprised and disappointed that the regulations have not already been laid before the House in their final form. I doubt whether the Benches would have been packed but if the regulations had been laid before the House hon. Members with an interest could have made comparisons between the draft directive and the HSC's proposals instead of having to rely on the earlier document.

However, the Government tell us that domestic legislation will meet the requirements of the directive, at least in its early stages. It would be particularly unfortunate if that were not the case, because the proposed EEC limit values, at any rate initially, are not particularly stringent. If I have got it right—I think that I am in line with what the Minister said—the proposed air-lead concentration is 150 micrograms of lead per cubic metre of air, and the maximum blood lead limit is 70 micrograms per millilitre of blood. The United Kingdom proposes limits of 150 and 80 respectively.

Tighter standards are proposed by the European Commission from 1 January 1985, with the lead-in-air limit then at 100 micrograms and a blood lead limit of 60 micrograms. This is where we run into a little trouble. The Government appear to be unwilling to accept these tighter standards. In the explanatory memorandum, they refer to the cost to industry. In considering this matter, the most important cost is the consequences to individual workers of exposure to lead. That must be the overriding factor. If higher standards are uniform within the EEC, there should not be a competitive disadvantage for United Kingdom industry, certainly in respect of Europe.

I do not want to be too dogmatic about the figures. We are in a somewhat technical world, as I am sure the hon. and learned Gentleman will agree. I know that the Health and Safety Executive would argue that there is little evidence-again the Minister said this today—of harm from exposure to lead at levels between the figures set in the directive. A large number of workers might be unnecessarily suspended if the levels were too harsh, and it has been suggested that more research is required before the EEC levels can be accepted.

Of course, this is not a new issue. A great deal of research has already taken place. I view with suspicion the attitude of some employers. Indeed, I understand that it is because of employer pressure that the European Commission has watered down some of its original proposals, which would otherwise have been even more stringent than those which the Government are now reluctant to accept. Rather than the earlier European Commission proposals for mandatory suspension of workers whose blood lead levels exceed 70 micrograms, it now seems that the mandatory suspension has been dropped in favour of far less specific action to be taken at 60 micrograms. Article 12, which deals with what should happen when someone is over the limit, seems to leave decided loopholes. I accept what the hon. and learned Gentleman said about the need for flexibility, perhaps in the case of an older worker being laid off and ending up permanently out of work if laid off in the wrong circumstances. I have heard talk of what has been called "the grandfather brigade". One must take these things into account.

Having said that, I favour the toughest possible safeguards. I am not entirely convinced by what I have heard about these matters so far. The implementation target date for this directive was to have been 1 January 1982, and that has now slipped by a full three years. I am told that that is primarily as a result of employer pressure.

There is also the question of the exemption list, under which some industries need not comply fully until 1989. The Minister himself has doubts in this regard, and I wonder whether that will not present further loopholes and perhaps postpone necessary action. I am glad to know that the hon. and learned Gentleman will look more carefully at that matter in the further consideration and consultations that will take place.

I do not want to detain the House by arguing technicalities, but I should like to say something about research. The Lawther report was published in March. An EEC survey was also carried out in this country, including research in Islington, in my constituency. I know that all that was environmental and that it took place on a community-wide basis rather than at the workplace. However, a great deal of information about the effects of lead was obtained.

Having perhaps expressed some reservations about the directive, and more especially about the Government's attitude, I repeat that we welcome the directive generally as a major advance in the right direction. It is one thing to welcome the directive, as I do, irrespective of any criticism of detail. It is one thing, perhaps more guardedly, to welcome the HSC regulations and the code of practice that relate directly to the directive, which we shall want to examine in more detail in due course. It is another thing to recognise that implementation will need more than lip service. It will need extra resources.

There will be an additional burden on industry. That is a price that it is socially and morally right for industry to pay. In the long run, I suppose that part of the additional cost will be met by industry's customers, and it is right for that cost to be paid. Death and disease caused by the hazards of the workplace have taken a heavy toll of the nation's work force for all too long. We should support all efforts to minimise that toll and to reduce the figures.

The cost to firms will be massively offset by the gains—for example, the increased stability of the work force and better productivity when workers are in better health. We all know that a tremendous amount of working time is lost through industrial injury and accidents. Every survey has consistently shown that far more days are lost in that way than are ever lost through strikes.

There are other important costs to consider. Implementation of the domestic and EEC legislation is bound to mean more work for the Health and Safety Executive, especially for the Factory Inspectorate and the Employment Medical Advisory Service. The directive sets still higher standards and will require still more enforcement than even the domestic legislation if that is unamended.

The executive has to have the tools to do the job. However, there have been two series of cuts in its staff under the Government, resulting in a startling reduction of more than 10 per cent. In addition, and with grave implications for industrial health and safety, the Secretary of State has asked for a reduction of another 8 per cent. The right hon. Gentleman has produced an outraged reaction from the Health and Safety Commission—and its reaction is quite justified. It is right to bring this matter out into the daylight. Ministers have not told us anything about it.

The commission has told the Secretary of State that if he persists in these cuts it will be unable to fulfil its statutory obligations under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974. It has explained what an 8 per cent. cut across the board would entail. Visits to factories that are not regarded as especially dangerous plants would probably have to be so infrequent as hardly to merit being carried out.

The staff bulletin sent to the staff of the commission puts them in the picture on these matters in a way that has not been available to the House. The bulletin contains the letter of the chairman of the commission, Mr. Bill Simpson, to the Secretary of State for Employment. It says: A further cut of 8 per cent. in staff numbers, in addition to the cuts required by the previous reductions in the budget, would bring the total staff of the Executive back to little more than the level of 1975—that is broadly to the level of resources in use on health and safety matters prior to the passing of the 1974 Act. The letter continues: The Executive is now responsible for the health and safety of about 18 million people at work as compared with 12 million before the 1974 Act. The letter stresses: the basic implementation of a further 8 per cent cut in staff would therefore be that a far wider range of responsibilities would have to be carried out with broadly the same staff as before the passing of the 1974 Act. Clearly this would mean that some or all of the work being carried out prior to the 1974 Act would have to be substantially reduced in scale or comprehensiveness in order that resources could be available for dealing with the new responsibilities. This was certainly not what was envisaged when the 1974 Act was passed. Both the original Bill, introduced by the Conservative Administration, and the Bill which was finally passed by the Labour Administration referred in the explanatory memorandum to the additional resources which would be needed to implement the Act."

The chairman observes: It will be immediately clear to you that the implications can only be regarded as serious. His final paragraph states: We are about, in any case, to embark upon a review of our programme of work with particular reference to new or updated regulations and codes of practice. Here, perhaps, we come particularly to the points that we are discussing this afternoon. The chairman says: The resources available for 1982-83 will force the postponement for some time of a number of major projects. A further cut of 8 per cent in staff employed on this work would certainly mean that projects and developments which the Commission regards as of real importance in carrying out our responsibilities would have to be abandoned altogether for the foreseeable future. There is an annex for the benefit of staff, entitled: Effect of further 8 per cent. cut in staff. It has been produced by the director of the Health and Safety Executive, Mr. John Lock. It refers in particular to the effects on the Factory Inspectorate and the Employment Medical Advisory Service—the two areas most affected by the directive and by the regulations and code of practice to which the Minister has referred.

Here we come to an even more remarkable situation, which I think is unprecedented in relations between the Government and any body such as the Health and Safety Commission. I understand that the commission has told the Govern- ment that it cannot accept the responsibility for making these further 8 per cent. cuts, and that if Ministers persist they must decide how to wield the axe and which parts should be chopped. In other words, it is saying that the Government must do their own dirty work.

I regard that as a crisis in relations between the commission and the Government, a crisis entirely of the Government's making. It is certainly not the sort of situation that we in the Labour Government's Department of Employment ever experienced in dealing with any such bodies. The country's industrial health and safety programme has been plunged into a scandalous state by the Government's sheer blinkered irresponsibility.

Not only lead is poisonous to workers. So is the Government's policy. I therefore ask the Minister what he and his colleagues will do about these disastrous cuts. How will they go about fulfilling the requirements of the directive, the health and safety regulations and the code of practice which it is proposed to introduce? Will they slash the agricultural inspectorate in spite of the grave death and accident rate in that industry? Will the axe fall upon the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate, in spite of the Government's apparent determination to press ahead with the development of a nuclear energy programme? Will it fall on the Mines and Quarries Inspectorate, which is already suffering from a shortage of inspectors? Will the target be the Alkali and Clean Air Inspectorate, with all the implications that that would have not only for workers in the relevant industries, but for the environment beyond and for the local communities? Or, to come back to lead, will they sabotage the work of the Factory Inspectorate and the Employment Medical Advisory Service which are both directly and heavily concerned in the implementation of those measures?

The Health and Safety Commission's attitude, which seems to be tantamount to rebellion against the Government's wrecking tactics, is that of the commission members as a whole—not just representatives of the trade unions but those of the employers and other interests. It is no good the Government's coming to the House with their hand on their heart saying that they are about to make another major improvement in industrial health and safety and seeking to gain credit for it and for an enlightened approach, when they know that they are not only unwilling to make the necessary resources available but are undermining the legislation which they have a clear responsibility to see enforced. If they persist in further cuts they should come to the House openly with their proposals to alter or repeal the legislation. We can then fight it out publicly, not on a hole and corner basis, and the country will know where the Government stand on these matters and how little they care for industrial health and safety.

We see today an exercise in gross hypocrisy. I do not blame the Minister for that; I am not attacking him personally. I am sure that he is shackled and, perhaps, impotent in these matters. It is high time, however, that the Secretary of State made a frank and open statement to the House about the grave situation facing the commission and about other matters related to public expenditure for which he is responsible. He should be fighting for them in the Cabinet, not meekly accepting these further damaging cuts.

We are certainly not opposed to the directive, but we believe that it is for the Government to demonstrate that they are not simply wasting the time of the House and of all those concerned with protecting workers from exposure to lead poisoning by going through the motions here while ensuring that effective implementation is little more than a pipe dream.

1.50 pm
Mr. Mayhew

Being neither shackled nor impotent, I should like to respond briefly to the points raised by the hon. Member for Islington, Central (Mr. Grant). I shall confine my remarks to his comments on the directive. This is a major advance in the right direction. The hon. Gentleman is wrong in supposing that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has approved the domestic regulations. They are with him, but they have not yet been approved. They closely conform to the shape and principle of the European directive.

Mr. John Grant

I am not sure how up to date the Under-Secretary's information is, but I have been assured that the Secretary of State has given his approval to the domestic regulations.

Mr. Mayhew

I have made inquiries, but it does not matter whether the regulations are approved this week or next week. I am sure that they will be approved.

I share the hon. Gentleman's doubts about the wisdom of article 12. If the levels are exceeded, suspension should take place immediately. We wanted to avoid unnecessary cost falling upon employers. It does not matter whether all member States would be in the same boat if unrealistically stringent levels were fixed by the European directive. The Government's task is to ensure that unnecessary cost does not fall upon employers.

Half of the hon. Gentleman's speech was spent in launching a diatribe against the Government's refusal to exempt the Health and Safety Commission from the obligation to make cuts in expenditure which, with the exception of the Armed Forces and the police, have been imposed across the board by the Government. The Government were elected in order to restore the country's national housekeeping to a proper basis. If we were to fail in that, all the aspirations of the Government and the people would fail. That extends to the ability to provide employment for people, and to provide a proper monitoring service for the health and safety of people at work.

The hon. Gentleman was wrong when he said that a third tranche of cuts of 8 per cent. had been imposed on the Health and Safety Commission. My right hon. Friend has asked the chairman of the Health and Safety Commission to advise him about the likely affects of a further cut of 8 per cent. in staff expenditure, if that were found to be necessary. The Government will make up their minds in the light of the advice that they receive. They have an overriding duty to assure the stability of this country by getting its national housekeeping into a proper state.

I welcome the accord that exists in this crowded and excited House as to the principles of this European directive.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House takes note of European Community Document 11571/79 and Addendum 1 for a Council Directive on the protection of workers from harmful exposure to metallic lead and its ionic compounds at work and welcomes the Government's intention to support appropriate measures for the control of persons' exposure to lead at work.