HC Deb 29 July 1980 vol 989 cc1423-49 10.14 pm
Mr. Harold Walker () Doncaster

I beg to move, That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Notification of Accidents and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 1980 (S.I., 1980, No. 804), dated 12th June 1980, a copy of which was laid before this House on 24th June, be annulled. Although the regulations before the House stand in the name of the Under-Secretary of State for Employment, they have, of course, been introduced and produced by the Health and Safety Commission. Since its inception in 1974 the commission has been a strong and beneficial influence on the improvement in occupational health and safety in this country, and I am glad to have the opportunity tonight to pay tribute to its work. Because I support the commission, I take no pleasure in criticising these proposals.

Before I turn to the specific matters that give rise to our prayer I should like to make a brief general point. The principal purpose of the regulations is greatly to extend the area over which there is a statutory obligation to notify accidents and dangerous occurrences. That is to be welcomed, and I am sure that it would command the support of the whole House. However, if notification is not to degenerate into a mere gathering of statistics it is essential for there to be a matching increase in the resources and manpower available to the commission.

If the new regulations are to be effectively implemented they are bound to make additional demands on the Health and Safety Executive, yet the Government choose this time to impose further crippling cuts on the budget of the commission. To a present cut of 10 per cent. the Government propose to add a further cut of 8 per cent. That is a cut-by-cut approach to health and safety. Such a savage cutback—nearly one-fifth—can only imply that the Government are prepared cynically to abandon the aims of the 1974 Act and the philosophy on which it was based.

No doubt the Minister will take refuge in the pathetic argument that only defence and law and order are immune from the cuts. But is this not a law and order question? Why is the enforcement of the criminal law in workers' health and safety to be given a lower priority than the issue of parking tickets?

I turn now to our objections to the regulations in their present form. First, there is the question of the vires of the proposals. The regulations are made under the provisions of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974. Section 1 (2) of the Act requires that any new regulations shall be such as will maintain or improve the standards of health, safety and welfare established by or under those enactments. The Minister and my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Mr. Cryer) know, perhaps more than any others, that those words in the 1974 Act were carefully chosen and deliberately inserted in response to anxieties expressed during the passage of the Bill through Parliament, and were intended to provide a statutory safeguard against any dilution of standards. As I said at the time, as the Minister responsible for the piloting of the legislation through the House, I did not intend those words to be a mere presentational embellishment.

Now, the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments, in its thirty-sixth report, draws the special attention of both Houses to four specific matters which appear to reduce or to dilute the existing standards. I am delighted that my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley is present in the Chamber, because he is the Chairman of the Committee. It might therefore be sensible for me to leave him further to explain to the House why the Committee reported as it did. It reached a proper and correct conclusion.

If the Minister takes a contrary view to that of the Committee and myself and advises the House that the regulations are not ultra vires, would it not be open to an organisation or a person outside the House to test this issue in the courts? Surely, vires must ultimately be a matter for judicial determination. Despite the hon. and learned Gentleman's legal skill and knowledge, which we have learned to admire, this is not a matter on which Parliament can claim the last word.

After taking official advice from the Department of Employment, in the immediate post-enactment period I was publicly saying that the issue might be open for action in the way that I have suggested.

I should like to add a further brief comment on the Committee's report before turning to other matters. In page 2 of the report of the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments there appear the words: The Committee was told in evidence that the intention of the Act was exhortatory and that prosecution would be used only as a last resort. I do not know who said that to the Select Committee—perhaps my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley will tell us in due course—because the minutes of evidence are not yet published, but whoever said it had neither authority nor grounds for making such a statement. It is for Parliament to determine the intention of any Act. When the 1974 legislation was going through the House there was no suggestion by anyone, least of all myself, as the responsible Minister, that the Act was intended to be "exhortatory". That should go on record.

Schedule 5 of the regulations lists a series of statutory obligations to notify accidents that are to be repealed or revoked. I single out the proposed repeal of section 80 of the Factories Act 1961 as a good example of what is taking place as a result of these proposals. Section 80—a provision that has existed since at least 1937—provides:

  1. "(1) Where an accident in a factory—
    1. (a) causes loss of life to a person employed in the factory; or
    2. (b) disables any such person for more than three days from earning full wages at the work at which he was employed;
written notice of the accident, in the prescribed form and accompanied by the prescribed particulars, shall forthwith be sent to the inspector for the district. It goes on later to make provision for a penalty where the person responsible fails to give such notice.

Those words and the provisions in the other statutes listed in schedule 5 are to be replaced by regulation 7. I hope that the House noted carefully the mandatory obligation placed upon employers and occupiers of premises by section 80 of the Factories Act 1961. I said that it was typical of many of the other enactments listed for revocation or repeal in schedule 5. That provision is now to be replaced by regulation 7: Where an employee suffers an injury as a result of an accident and his employer sends particulars of that accident to the Department of Health and Social Security, the Secretary of State shall give notice of the accident by sending a copy of those particulars to the Health and Safety Executive. There is no statutory requirement that the accident must be notified, let alone any requirement to do it "forthwith", and there is no mention of any penalty for non-compliance. Whatever construction the Minister may put on those words, I cannot see how regulation 7 can be construed as a mandatory obligation to notify an accident that keeps a worker away from his job for the period set out in regulation 3 (1) (b).

Mr. Ronald W. Brown () Hackney, South and Shoreditch

That does not mean that what the employer sends forward is the truth. He may manufacture his own interpretation of the accident.

Mr. Walker

I hope that my hon. Friend has noticed that regulation 7 does not impose any obligation on the employer to say anything. If the employer chooses to keep quiet he will not be committing any statutory offence. The wording seems to make notification by the employer virtually voluntary. I cannot understand how the House can accept such a proposal.

When the Under-Secretary replies, he may well say that I have taken too narrow a view of regulation 7. He may say that I have failed to understand how it will operate. How is it supposed to work? I understand that it is based on the assumption that if a worker is off work as a result of an accident for the period laid down in regulation 3 (1) (b), he will be eligible for industrial injury benefit. That is not always true. A worker may be disqualified from being eligible for many reasons.

However, I shall put aside the exceptions and pursue the general intention of the Health and Safety Commission and of the Government. If a worker claims benefit, the Department of Health and Social Security will require the employer to complete a form. The number of that form may be B1 76HSE. No doubt the Under-Secretary will give the correct number when he replies. Unfortunately, copies of the form are not available to the House and we do not know what information the form will require. Nor do we have any assurance that the information required will not change from time to time. The form could have been a schedule to the regulations, and it is a pity that it is not.

Incidentally, under section 80 of the Factories Act a worker does not have to be off work for his accident to be notifiable. It is widely assumed that the worker must be off work for three days, and that only then is there an obligation for the employer or occupier to give notification of that. That is not so. The Act says that notification is required when the worker is unable to earn a full wage, although he may be at work on a different job and at lower rates of pay.

The DHSS will be required to send to the Health and Safety Executive a copy of the form that has been completed by the employer. In that way notification will be effected. It is claimed that there will be less form filling. In all the procedures no role has been designated for the safety representative. The regulations contain no mention of safety representatives. The most significant factor is that it seems that the Health and Safety Commission was unaware that the Government proposed to make the employer responsible for the first eight weeks of pay in the case of absence due to sickness.

There was some doubt whether the proposals contained in the Green Paper would encompass absence due to industrial injury. Therefore, I asked a parliamentary question. I received the answer that injury and absence due to industrial injury are within the scope of the proposals. The reply was qualified by reference to decisions that might be taken in the light of comments on the Green Paper. As long as there is a possibility that there will be no claim on the Department of Health and Social Security for eight weeks—or whatever other period the Government eventually choose—I cannot understand how the Health and Safety Commission can proceed with these regulations.

It would be sensible for the Government and the Health and Safety Commission to withdraw these proposals, pending the final determination of the Government's policy on benefit payment, and further to amend them in the light of what I have said and others may say this evening. Unless they do so, millions of people in industry who look to this House for protection may find themselves with no notification procedure. If the proposals are not withdrawn, in the absence of absolute guarantees from the Government I shall have to ask the House, no matter how regretfully, to vote against them.

10.30 pm
Mr. Bob Cryer () Keighley

The Minister would normally now reply to the cogent and well argued case put forward by my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster (Mr. Walker).

The Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments was set up by this House and the other place to scrutinise delegated legislation. The House should take notice of its report and act accordingly. The Committee was strongly of the view that in spite of the possibility that powers exist within the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, the prescribed forms of notification should be contained in the instrument. It was alarmed to discover that the Health and Safety Commission is apparently being given delegated powers by this legislation, outside and away from the House, to change forms as and when it chooses. Failure to complete a form is a criminal offence. We are not talking of a peripheral, halfhearted or inconsequential power.

The Department of Employment view is that the legislation does not involve criminal sanctions but is simply designed to exhort people to do good things, but if people did good things all the time we should not need legislation. We pass legislation and provide sanctions because people are not men of good will the whole time. We require people to alter their behaviour by virtue of those sanctions.

The minutes of evidence taken before the Committee are now in the Vote Office. A representative of the Department of Employment said: If an employer filled up one of the older forms, in practice he would never be prosecuted on the basis of that older form which, having been superseded, would have no legal status or standing. That form, failure to complete which is a criminal offence, will be changed by administrative fiat. It will not be brought before Parliament. The representative explained that it should not be necessary to trouble Parliament with such administrative matters. The right hon. Member for Crosby (Sir G. Page), who is a former Chairman of the Committee, said: You are not only taking on yourselves the power to legislate but you are taking on yourselves the power to dispense mercy and let a person off who has committed a criminal offence. Surely that cannot be right. Mr. Robertson replied: I would put it this way. It is a difficult point. The major purpose in these regulations is not to prosecute but to encourage and exhort and persuade compliance with the regulations. It is surely a matter of concern that a Department can administratively dispense mercy and decide whether or not the aim of Parliament should be conformed with.

I also wish to enlarge on my right hon. Friend's cogent comments on the vires of the order, a matter of fundamental importance. In its 36th report the Joint Committee said: The Committee note that a number of provisions of these regulations appear to relax earlier standards. Examples are: (a) that the period during which an employee is incapacitated and which determines whether his accident is notifiable is extended; (b) that the criteria for an employee's ability to return to work at his existing job appear to be weakened; (c) that the period of stoppage at a workplace as a result of explosion or fire which determines whether such a dangerous occurrence is notifiable is extended; and (d) that accidents arising from grinding wheels are no longer notifiable as such. It went on: The Committee have strong doubts about the vires of provisions which by relaxing current standards conflict with a principal purpose of the 1974 Act—contained in section 1 (2)—'to maintain or improve the standards of health, safety and welfare' established under other enactments. My concern on health and safety matters has been demonstrated over a number of years. Like the Under-Secretary, I served on the Committee on the 1974 Bill. I wish to go beyond the views of the Joint Committee to outline my view of the situation.

Section 1 (2) of the 1974 Act refers to enactments being: progressively replaced by a system of regulations and approved codes of practice operating in combination with the other provisions of this Part and designed to maintain or improve the standards of health, safety and welfare established by or under those enactments. That refers to the existing relevant statutes listed at the back of the legislation. That provision was specifically incorporated as a result of representations made in Committee and on Report. Indeed, the Under-Secretary supported such a view, because in Committee he said: I think that there will be many opportunities in our discussions to point out the necessity for a more diligent approach to the investigation of factory accidents by the Factory Inspectorate and a much tougher approach to breaches of the law."—[Official Report, Standing Committee A, 2 May 1974; c. 60.] The instrument that we are considering, which is signed by the Under-Secretary, is the reverse of the claim that he made so boldly in 1974. It reverses the posisition. At present, accidents have to be notified if a person is off work for three days or more due to an injury that prevents him from earning full wages at the work at which he was employed. The regulations allow a period of five days, because regulation 3 (1) (b) excludes the day of the accident and Sunday, or a rest day if Sunday is not a rest day.

Let us consider the case of a worker who strains his back. About 50,000 such cases are reported each year. At present, if the strain results in three days off work it represents a reportable accident. Under the regulations, an accident would be notifiable only after five days off work. The existing legislation requires that an employee must be able to return to his old job and earn a wage at it, but that is now discarded. The employer can give such a person a lighter job, with the result that the accident will not have to be notified. There will be no notification, no investigation, and no remedial action to prevent further back injury—the whole purpose of the factory inspection system, built up over the years.

Let us consider an accident that leads to the amputation of two or three fingers. Under existing legislation such an accident is notifiable if the worker has to take three days or more off work. Provided that the worker does not have to stay in hospital for more than 24 hours—if the stay is longer, for observation, that is excluded—amputation of the fingers is not a major injury under the regulations. Under regulation 2 a complete hand must be amputated before it is regarded as a major injury.

If the employer gives the man a lighter job when he returns to work after four or five days, counting stock instead of doing his old job, that will not be regarded as a notifiable action, and perhaps a breach of the power press regulations would not come to light.

Schedule 1 sets out the dangerous occurrences that must be reported. The Factories Act 1961 provides that the bursting of a revolving vessel, wheel, grindstone or grinding wheel moved by mechanical power is a notifiable accident, but it is excluded from the regulations.

In 1979, 457 dangerous occurrences with 29 injuries took place. The reporting of such occurrences is to be removed. No investigations and no remedial action will take place. Dangerous occurrences will increase, as will the number of injuries. It can be argued that the reduction in the number of accidents arising from bursting grinding wheels is the result of legislation being applied tightly and scrutinised, and because it is a notifiable accident in its own right.

Schedule 1, in paragraph 4, extends the period of a reportable stoppage due to an explosion or fire from five to 24 hours. Clearly, the fire must be significantly more serious to be reportable under the order. The same is true of electrical fires. The period of stoppage is increased from five to 24 hours. The order extends the coverage that the Health and Safety at Work Act gave. That Act provides that regulations must be designed to maintain or improve safety standards. It does not suggest that if some standards are dropped because of a wider coverage, that will suffice on balance.

The longer notification period is not due to anxiety about standards. In evidence to the Committee it was made clear that it was because of administrative convenience. Mr. Stanley said: The purpose of this is to fit in with the DHSS period for notification of industrial accidents and ties in with Regulation 7 which requires the DHSS to notify us of the accident when they receive the report of the accident from the employer. It is not a question of higher standards or even the maintenance of existing standards. It is just a question of administrative convenience.

In order to avoid the uncomfortable thought that some of the specifics upon which the regulations are built encourage lower standards, Mr. Stanley said: The answer is that you have got to look at the regulations as a whole rather than look at any specific point. Primary legislation establishes a principle. Delegated legislation gives Ministers the power established in the detailed legislation. It is claimed that more accidents will be notified because of section 7 of the Act. That is doubtful. That section covers industrial injury benefit. A consultative document suggests that industrial injury benefit might be eroded or diminished. That would not be outside the Conservative Government's attitude. If that happens, the whole of section 7 will disappear as a side wind, and notification as a result of industrial injury benefit claims will disappear.

Reduction in the number of industrial injuries is vital. I am glad to see that the Secretary of State is present. He has been spending a great deal of time on a legislative matter that he thinks important, and to which I attribute a great deal less importance. That is the question of industrial relations. The records show that far more days are lost through industrial injury than through strike action. In 1976, according to figures provided by the Library, 23.2 million working days were lost due to industrial injury and 3.2 million days in strike action. In 1977, a worse year, 10.1 million days were lost in strike action and 23.2 million days were lost due to industrial injury. The lesson is clear. We should pay far more attention to losses of days through industrial injury than through strike action.

We are discussing regulations that demonstrate a lowering of standards established by the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act. I am driven to the conclusion that the regulations are designed to diminish reporting through the diminished effectiveness of the Health and Safety Executive and the Health and Safety Commission by virtue of the cuts in expenditure. The cuts are bound to have an effect on the number of factory inspectors who go round knocking on factory doors to investigate accidents and to see that the legislation is enforced. Those are the people who will be crucially affected by the cuts.

The regulations are a mistaken gesture. I hope that the Under-Secretary of State will recall his brave words in Committee, will withdraw the order, look at it again, and make sure that it is not ultra vires—as I and the Committee strongly believe it is—or we shall vote against it.

10.47 pm
Mr. Tim Eggar () Enfield, North

I shall not detain hon. Members for long, but I want to draw attention to two matters that concern my local authority and, I believe, a number of other local authorities in London with which I have been in contact. I do so in the spirit of seeking clarification and confirmation rather than anything else.

The first matter relates to the load on the staff councils caused by the introduction of these provisions. My council at Enfield is deeply concerned that it will find a substantial increase in its work load. At present 28,000 people are employed in non-council work in the London borough of Enfield. An average of 67 accidents is notified every year. I agree that the figure is probably evidence of the failure of the present notification system. Nevertheless, if there is to be a significant increase in the number of accidents notified to the local authority there will inevitably be staffing implications, at a time when the Government, rightly, are putting pressure on local authorities to reduce manning levels.

The second matter relates to the council not as an enforcing authority but as an employer. It has duties beyond those of other employers relating to people who use public places such as libraries and toilets. The council is concerned about accidents that occur in connection with the home help service. I am not clear, from a review of the statutory instrument, whether the Under-Secretary of State has taken into account the points made to him by local authorities. Nevertheless, I would like my hon. and learned Friend to put that clearly on the record.

I received a letter from the chief executive of the London borough of Enfield which states: Moreover, an exploding coffee percolator, or an electrical appliance catching fire in the course of a home help's work would be a dangerous occurrence which we would have to notify even if nobody was injured. That aspect is covered by schedule 3, dealing with dangerous occurrences. It seems, however, that this matter has been excluded from schedule 1 (1). I should like clarification of that.

The chief executive goes on: I must say, that I remain worried about the application of the proposals to the home help service in particular. We have no control over people's household arrangements and equipment. An accident occurring after the home help has left (say an old lady slipping on a floor which the home help had polished) would be almost impossible to investigate properly if and when it even came to our knowledge. Clearly, if there is some misunderstanding on the part of the London borough of Enfield and other local authorities that matter should be clarified, because there is considerable concern about it.

10.51 pm
Mr. Greville Janner () Leicester, West

Surely the object of these regulations is to ensure that notification takes place so that accidents may be monitored and steps taken to avoid any recurrence. I do not know why the hon. Member for Enfield, North (Mr. Eggar) is so worried about local authorities having to accept notifications. Surely they should be more rather than less concerned, whether it is about the explosion of a coffee percolator or an old lady slipping on a floor polished by a home help. The trouble in practice is that there are too few notifications, not too many.

Too often people do not notify every notifiable accident, particularly on building sites and in engineering works.

Secondly, there are other accidents at work that are not identified as such—accidents causing back injuries, for example, which do not hit people at the time and which do not keep them off work for three days.

Hundreds of thousands of people are suffering from nervous stress ailments, probably caused at work, but they cannot isolate them as being work accidents because they may just as easily have resulted from something that happened at home, or from a combination of the two. There are accidents to people's hands and feet that may be comparatively minor but may lead to major consequences and that are not notifiable.

I was recently told of the case of someone who cut his finger on the metal banding on a bale. The cut became infected and in due course the hand became gangrenous and was amputated. Unfortunately, that is not untypical. Minor accidents turn into major disasters. I would have thought that the Government would wish to ensure that there was the maximum clear and effective notification. On this issue, unlike others that we discussed last night, I should have thought that we were all on the same side, all attempting to achieve a better system for the notification of accidents. We are surely attempting here to improve the system, not to maintain and certainly not to reduce the amount of notification.

Let me give one more example. My hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Mr. Cryer), in an excellent and well argued speech, referred to the cutting off of a finger. There is also the cutting off of toes. It is to avoid such accidents that protective gloves or boots and shoes have to be provided. One of the major arguments going on right the way through our industry is whether boots should be provided; if so, whether they should be provided free; whether they should be subsidised, and, if so, on what basis; whether a subsidy helps; and how, in practice, we can encourage employers to spend a little more on the protection of their employees. We cannot do that unless we have proper statistics, which tell the truth, which are maximal and not minimal, and which are accurate.

A substantial number of good employers keep a record not only of notifiable accidents but of every accident, however small. Certainly those of us who advise in industry say that the accident book should contain these records. If the records are properly kept, and if they are as clear as they should be, they are available. The notification procedure should not be a burden on industry, the local authority, or those who receive it.

I ask the Minister to reconsider these regulations and see whether the points that have been made to him are right. They are not made in any spirit of antagonism or any wish to make matters worse. We may attack on other occasions to destroy policies. We are trying, together, to achieve enforcement of an all-party statute for which even the Irish voted. We are trying to achieve a reduction, in real terms, in accidents to those who are fortunate enough still to be in work

The Act has been doing excellently because the commission and others have been co-operating with it, because the unions have been working with it, and because the safety representative system has been built up. Now these notification rules appear, in the ways that have been outlined, to reduce the requirements for notification. Instead of three days, when a person is unable to do his normal job, it is now essentially four days—because the day of the accident is excluded—and possibly five days.

Will the Minister say whether he agrees with that definition? If he does, what is the point of it? Does he agree that, in effect, there will be fewer accidents to notify? If that is right, does not he agree, with those of us who have considered this matter, that this is a reduction in the notification requirement? By definition, it is not a maintenance of the standards required by the Act but a lowering of those standards. If it is a lowering of the standards required by the Act it must be ultra vires the schedule that gives power under the Act to make the regulations.

Those matters are worrying us. We want to achieve better regulations. We are worried in case this statutory instrument makes matters worse instead of better and accidents less notifiable and, therefore, more likely.

10.58 pm
Mr. Ronald W. Brown () Hackney, South and Shoreditch

I echo the call of my hon. Friend for what we believe to be unity in this matter. We are all seeking to do the same thing. The accident record in our country is deplorable. Basically, we do not know what the real size of it is. We know that it is deplorable, and what we believe is taking place is even worse. Therefore I support my hon. Friend's view that we should make it the objective of everybody to try to avoid accidents and, when they happen, to seek methods of ensuring that they do not occur again.

I was sad when I read the regulations. Certainly those of us who have been participants in safety work in industry over the years have tried desperately to encourage employers and employees to seek safer methods of working. As I read the regulations it seems to me that they go the opposite way. They appear to dissuade people from being interested. I saw the commentary on the evidence that was taken in the Joint Committee. I regret that it has only just become available. I understand the printing problem. However, it is impossible for hon. Members to undertake their task properly. I received a regulation that had no relevance to the examination until I picked up the document this evening just before I entered the Chamber.

Mr. Thornton gave evidence on behalf of the Department, and I thought that his comment was very real. He said: So if we have a fracture of a bone in ankle or foot and it is not serious enough to keep a person in hospital for 24 hours we do not want to know about it but if it is we do. Did it not occur to Mr. Thornton that the fact that someone had an injury that did not keep him in hospital for more than 24 hours was a stroke of good fortune? That person might have lost his foot, but Mr. Thornton takes the view that he does not want to know about the accident—even though the accident that caused the damage may be potentially extremely dangerous—because of a stroke of good fortune.

It was that sort of attitude, which was prevalent among those giving evidence to the Joint Committee, that worried me. Mr. Stanley was question by my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Mr. Cryer). He said: The purpose of this is to fit in with the DHSS period for notification of industrial accidents and ties in with Regulation 7 which requires the DHSS to notify us of the accident when they receive the report of the accident from the employer. That should read "if they receive a report". There is no obligation on the employer to submit a report. Who is to say that the employer gives a true version if he submits a report? The Department and the Health and Safety Executive should want to know, so that they can carry out proper investigations. That can be done only if it is mandatory upon the employer to provide the information.

If there is no mandatory obligation upon the employer, two things are possible. If the employer feels that he is culpable, what is the incentive for him to make a report? An accident has a great spin-off. Many things flow from it. If an employer wants a quiet life he will not submit a report unless he is obliged to do so.

The Under-Secretary of State must satisfy the House that regulation 7 will ensure that employers are obligated to report an accident. If not, the House will want to know why not. How can it be said that there is any sense of support for the campaign to reduce accidents if the employer is being encouraged to beleve that he does not have to submit a report? If we provide the employer with all the escape routes and allow him to interpret or misinterpret the regulations as he thinks fit, we are giving him complete freedom.

Mr. Robertson told the joint commitee: We as a Department would not suggest that these regulations are perfection or anything like that". He argued that they are likely to ensure that there is an increase in reporting as against what he thought was underreporting now. He said that the regulations represent a substantial improvement in safety standards. There is not a shred of evidence for that. I ask the Under-Secretary of State to substantiate that view. Where is the evidence that they will be an incentive for safe working?

I have asked the Department why some inspectors seem to spend a great deal of time in factories that are excellent in all their safety work. It seems that there is a golden rule that allows inspectors to keep returning to the same firm if it is trying to improve its safety standards. However, in Hackney Road, in Hackney and Shore-ditch, all the scrimshankers are setting up in the furniture business and there is not a shred of safety in sight. I have asked the Department when the inspectors last visited those establishments. I have been told that there are problems—that there are not enough inspectors, and that the present inspectors are likely to get to these places only once in five or seven years.

In a good firm, a firm that is spending vast amounts of money on safety, the factory inspector is there as frequently as he can get there. No doubt the coffee is good. The scrimshankers will find these regulations of great value, because they will give them an out.

We are not arguing that there should be no revision. Of course there must be a revision in the light of information received and in the light of what is happening. I am not against that if we have safety at such a pitch that we can now say "Let us ease off a bit, we are now improving greatly". If accidents are reducing, there may be some argument for seeing whether we should be as tough as we might be.

All the evidence is to the contrary. There is a continuing run of accidents. We are not winning this battle. The furniture industry is a classic example. As parliamentary adviser to the unions, I can tell the Minister that we are losing the battle rather than winning it. Therefore, any action that his Department takes that will make that battle harder is a mistake. Even though the Minister may advance other aesthetic arguments for saying "Let us be more voluntary, and easier" unless he can show that this will have a greater impact on the number of appalling accidents in this country he cannot be justified in bringing forward these regulations.

When a Joint Committee of Parliament is prepared to draw a serious conclusion about these regulations—as it has done in its thirty-sixth report—any departmental Minister should take care if he intends to override those views. If the Minister is unwise enough to proceed with these regulations he had better spend the rest of the time left in this debate identifying in close detail exactly why he believes that the Joint Committee, with all its experience, is wrong, and why he, who has been in office only 15 months, believes that his knowledge is supreme.

11.8 pm

The Under-Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. Patrick Mayhew)

I begin by thanking the right hon. Member for Doncaster (Mr. Walker) for the tribute that he paid to the Health and Safety Commission for the work that it does. As the House knows, the commission is charged under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act—an all-party measure passed in 1974—with the responsibility of administering the legislation that governs the health and safety of people at work as well as members of the general public who are affected by activities at work.

It should not be readily supposed that the commission, with its record over the last few years, would wish to introduce new regulations for the approval of Parliament that would have the foreseeable effect of diminishing the safeguards that existing legislation offers to those whose safety it is the responsibility of the commission to safeguard.

The right hon. Gentleman welcomed the wider scope of the notifications of accidents for which these regulations provide. At the outset, I want to say that it is the intention of the commission, in putting these regulations forward, not to diminish but to improve the means by which the safety of people at work may be safeguarded. It does so in this way because it is virtually common ground—and certainly the belief of the commission—that there is substantial failure on the part of employers to report accidents that are notifiable under the present legislation. Although these regulations are drafted and put forward on behalf of the commission, it is our view that it is in the interests of safety that reportable accidents should be reported and that these regulations will secure a significant improvement in the extent of reporting.

The hon. Member for Keighley (Mr. Cryer) and I served on the Health and Safety at Work Committee in our first year in Parliament. I know of his interest in these matters and he knows that before I came to the House I had extensive experience of industrial injuries. I hope that he will accept that I share the views of many hon. Members about the great importance of reducing the incidence of industrial injuries, and that that view is common to all members of the Government.

The hon. Member for Keighley allowed himself to speculate whether these regulations had been introduced by the Health and Safety Commission as a means of trimming its sails to the wind of financial stringency. If he had read the consultative document he would have seen that the commission first consulted on the draft regulations along these lines in 1975. He may conclude that there is a certain embarrassment in that argument if he believes it to hold any water. There has been substantial consultation. Indeed, three separate consultative documents have been published by the commission.

I should also like to correct the right hon. Member for Doncaster, who said that the Health and Safety Commission had already been made to take a 10 per cent. cut. That is quite untrue. On 6 December the executive was committed to a reduction of 6 per cent. on staff-related expenditure, compared with an average of about 11 per cent. for the Department of Employment group as a whole. Thereafter, it was exempted from the further 2½ per cent. reduction that was imposed by way of salary cash limit squeeze for 1980 and 1981. The commission has recently been invited by my right hon. Friend to consider the likely effects of an 8 per cent. cut, if that were found to be necessary. No decisions on that have been made. It is important to put that correction on the record.

Mr. John Grant () Islington, Central

When the Under-Secretary says that the Health and Safety Commission has not been asked to take a 10 per cent. cut, is he talking about cash or about staff numbers? My understanding is that the consequence of the cuts will be a cut of more than 10 per cent. in staff numbers.

Mr. Mayhew

The cut of 6 per cent. to which I referred was in respect of staff-related expenditure. The assessment of the Health and Safety Commission was that that would require a staff reduction of 260. The commission subsequently decided that although savings of that order would not be achieved without some difficulty, their impact on the effectiveness of inspectorates would be minimised by improving the efficiency of the support services. The consequence of that will be proportionately greater savings in support staff and an increase in the total staff savings, to 350.

Mr. Harold Walker

Will the Under-Secretary explain—

Mr. Mayhew

If it is said that that is a cut of 10 per cent., it results from the commission's decision. The commission was required to make a reduction of 6 per cent. on staff-related expenditure. It decided that it would most effectively achieve that by improving the efficiency of the support services and by other economies. The consequence of that will be proportionately greater savings in support staff.

Mr. Walker

It is important to get this matter clear. I have a copy of the letter sent to the Secretary of State by the chairman of the commission, dated 3 July. It was not sent to me by the chairman and I am not prepared to say by what means I obtained it, but I know that it is authentic. Otherwise, I should not present it to the House. It states: Dear Secretary of State, Health and Safety Commission: future budget and programme of work. On 21 May I submitted to you the Commission's proposed programme of work for 1982/3 on the basis of the budget for staff expenditure which you had told us you would make available to us in that year. This involved a cut of about 10 per cent. in the staff employed by the Health and Safety Executive in the autumn of 1979. You subsequently wrote to me saying that in the light of the Government's general policy of reducing the size of the Civil Service to 630,000 by 1983/84, you wished to consider the implications of an additional 8 per cent. cut in HSE staff by that year. I hope that the House will accept that I gave the figures in good faith, based on that letter sent from the chairman of the commission to the Secretary of State. If 10 per cent. plus 8 per cent. does not add up to 18 per cent., it is time that I stopped coming to the House.

Mr. Mayhew

I stand by what I said. The cut amounted to a 6 per cent. cut in staff-related expenditure. As I have to finish by 11.30 pm I must get on with the purpose of the regulations.

The first point with which I want to deal concerns the vires. For many years, as the House knows, safety legislation passed by Parliament has required, in one form or another, the notification to various authorities of accidents and dangerous occurrences. The primary purpose of these requirements has been to assist in the prevention of future accidents by enabling the authorities to investigate promptly the causes of accidents and dangerous occurrences should they wish to do so; to measure safety performances and changes in accident patterns so that appropriate measures can be taken; and to meet demands for statistical and related information from the Government, Parliament, industry and other bodies. That is and has been the purpose of notification since notification was first required many years ago.

Since 1974 the principal responsibility for such matters has rested with the Health and Safety Commission and the executive, but under existing legislation, although accidents to employees and dangerous occurrences are notified to different inspectorates associated with the Health and Safety Executive and to local authorities, the legal requirement to notify accidents is not uniform over the whole area of work activity.

Briefly, the present requirements for reporting are as follows: in factories, accidents causing loss of life or which disable a person for more than three days from earning full wages at the work at which he was employed; and in mines and quarries, accidents causing death or serious bodily injury. In agriculture there are no requirements, except for poisonous substances as the causes of accidents.

The 1974 Act bought 8 million people within the ambit of the Health and Safety Executive. They include those working in schools, hospitals, fairgrounds and places of entertainment, and in respect of them there are no requirements for the reporting of accidents. As a result, there is an almost complete lack of accident experience in these areas.

In addition, the commission has identified two major disadvantages that derive from the present system. When an accident occurs to an employee in a factory or office, his employer is required to provide information about the same circumstances on two different forms; one to the DHSS and the other to Her Majesty's Factory Inspectorate. Significantly, it has been known for some time that it is quite common for accidents not to be reported although they are required by statute to be reported.

Failure to report appears to be most prevalent in the case of factory accidents. From a number of surveys, it seems likely that the extent of failure to report is about 30 per cent. That is a serious shortcoming. Accordingly, early in 1975 the Health and Safety Commission directed the Health and Safety Executive to prepare proposals for regulations for the notification of accidents and dangerous occurrences arising from work activities.

In July 1975 a consultation document was published. As a result of the comments received, the draft regulations were significantly revised and a further document was published in July 1977. A final consultative document, including draft regulations, was published in March 1979. As a result of these repeated consultations, the present proposals reflect agreement with all sides of industry, including the TUC. During this period, close consultation has been maintained with the principal Departments, and they are in broad agreement. The final draft was circulated to all Departments in December 1979.

The proposals are not a flash in the pan—as the hon. Member for Keighley suggested—which seek to mitigate the onslaught of some harsh new Conservative Government. They are the product of several years of consultation and have the general agreement of all sides of industry. They seek to ensure that accidents involving fatal and major injuries, and dangerous occurrences with the potential for inflicting major injuries, are reported promptly and directly to the enforcing authority. Secondly, they seek to ensure that information about more minor accidents is obtained as efficiently and at as low a cost as possible by using current DHSS procedures. Thirdly, they ensure that accident details are recorded by each employer, both for their own preventive programmes and so that they can be available for inspection by safety representatives and enforcing authorities.

The regulations will apply uniformly across all work activities. The details of the requirements to report will be the same wherever the incident occurs, instead of the wide variety of requirements that are now embodied in the law. It is also intended that the present considerable number of direct reporting forms will be replaced by a single form.

An important effect of the new regulations is that they will extend accident reporting requirements to areas of employment that have not previously been covered. This includes those areas covered by the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 for the first time.

Perhaps the most important innovation is that the requirement to report accidents direct to the enforcing authority will be restricted to fatalities, major injury accidents and dangerous occurrences. That aspect of the regulations will mean that there will be a drastic reduction in the administrative burden imposed by dual reporting, as it is estimated that only about 5 per cent. of notifiable accidents will be directly reportable. There will be a consequent saving in cost to those whose duty it is to report.

As for the remainder of accidents in respect of which claims for industrial injury benefit are made, the DHSS will have to send a copy of the report form BI 76, upon which information about the accident is set out. The right hon. Gentleman said that it was impossible to see what the form said. A copy of the form is included in page 19 of the consultative document. The form requires an employer to set out whether the claimant was employed in the occupation; the date of the accident; between what hours the accident took place; and whether—as a result of his investigation—the employer is satisfied that an accident occured, the nature of the accident, and how it happened. It also states: If a fall of person plant or material, state the height of the fall. The employer is required, and has a full opportunity, to set out the results of his investigation into the accident.

Mr. Cryer

The Minister has demonstrated that there is a difference between a consultative document and regulations. I never suggested that these regulations were a flash in the pan. That form, included in the consultative document from which he quotes, is not included in the instrument. The Minister must know that the regulations give power to the Department to produce what form it likes. Why does he not withdraw the regulations, and, since he quotes from the form in the consultative document, produce new regulations, with the form as a schedule? It would be clearer.

Mr. Mayhew

The form in question is the form that the DHSS has to send to any employer of a person who has made a claim for industrial injury benefit as a result of an accident sustained at work. The scheme on the regulations for minor injuries is that the employer shall fill in, in the ordinary course of his requirements under the DHSS legislation, his account of the accident on that form and that thereafter the Secretary of State for Social Services shall send to the Health and Safety Commission a copy of that form. By this means it is estimated that 30 per cent. of accidents that are at present not notified under the current legislation will be notified. That is an important matter, and one greatly in the interests of safeguarding the safety, health and welfare of people at work.

The second point is that one of the recommendations of the Robens Committee, which was the origin of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act, will be met. At paragraph 412 Robens recommended that: Priority should be given to the task of devising a standard form of accident report suitable for the purposes of both the Department of Health and Social Security and the proposed Authority for Safety and Health at Work, so that employers would need to report an accident only once". To benefit from the more detailed and comprehensive information provided by the DHSS system the definition of a three-day plus accident is slightly different from that in the existing legislation—section 80 of the Factories Act—to which reference has been made. Under the new regulations the day of the accident is not taken into account. The number of accidents that will cease to be reportable by reason of that is so small—estimated at less than 1 per cent. of those at present reported—as to be of little practical importance. This will be more than offset by the 85 per cent. increase that it is estimated will result from the wider scope and efficacy of the new regulations.

Mr. Harold Walker

Can the hon. and learned Member answer the point about the notification depending upon the claim for benefit being made and how this is reconciled with the Green Paper proposals?

Mr. Mayhew

Certainly, I shall deal with that point.

It is quite right that the case of a minor accident, as defined, there is no statutory obligation upon the employer to notify. In the case of any minor injury—and they will include the vast majority—that is the subject of a claim for industrial injury benefit, the notification takes place automatically, because the DHSS sends form BI 76 to the employer, who fills in his account of the accident. By statute, the Secretary of State for Social Services is obliged to send a copy to the enforcing authority. By that means a large number of additional accidents will be notified.

The right hon. Member for Doncaster asked whether the Government were proposing to make industrial injury benefit for the first eight weeks the responsibility of the employer, as well as sickness benefit. No decision on either one or the other has been taken. The Government are determined that there shall be as effective a means as possible of notifying accidents, and if it be the case that amendments should at a later stage be needed, the Health and Safety Commission will, without any doubt, be anxious

Division No. 434] AYES [11.30 pm
Alton, David Ellis, Tom (Wrexham) Roberts, Ernest (Hackney North)
Atkinson, Norman (H gey, Tott'ham) Evans, John (Newton) Rooker, J. W.
Beith, A. J. Ford, Ben Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight)
Bennett, Andrew (Stockport N) Grant, John (Islington C) Rowlands, Ted
Booth, Rt Hon Albert Hamilton, James (Bothwell) Skinner, Dennis
Brown, Ronald W. (Hackney S) Hamilton, W. W. (Central Fife) Snape, Peter
Callaghan, Jim (Middleton & P) Hardy, Peter Soley, Clive
Campbell-Savours, Dale Harrison, Rt Hon Waiter Spearing, Nigel
Cocks, Rt Hon Michael (Bristol S) Haynes, Frank Steel, Rt Hon David
Coleman, Donald Hooley, Frank Stewart, Rt Hon Donald (W Isles)
Concannon, Rt Hon J. D. Janner, Hon Greville Tinn, James
Craigen, J. M. (Glasgow, Maryhill) Johnston, Russell (Inverness) Varley, Rt Hon Eric G.
Cryer, Bob McCartney, Hugh Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne Valley)
Cunliffe, Lawrence McElhone, Frank Walker, Rt Hon Harold (Doncaster)
Dalyell, Tarn McKay, Allen (Penistone) Welsh, Michael
Deakins, Eric McQuade, John Wigley, Dafydd
Dean, Joseph (Leeds West) Marks, Kenneth Woodall, Alec
Dixon, Donald Millan, Rt. Hon Bruce Young, David (Bolton East)
Dormand, Jack Paisley, Rev Ian
Douglas-Mann, Bruce Parry, Robert TELLERS FOR THE AYES
Duffy, A. E. P. Penhligon, David Mr. Terry Davis and
Dunn, James A. (Liverpool, Kirkdale) Powell, Raymond (Ogmore) Mr. George Morton
Eastham, Ken Prescott, John
NOES
Adley, Robert Garel-Jones, Tristan Mellor, David
Alexander, Richard Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth N) Miller, Hal (Bromsgrove & Redditch)
Alison, Michael Hampson, Dr Keith Mills, Iain (Meriden)
Atkins, Rt Hon H. (Spelthorne) Hawkins, Paul Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)
Baker, Nicholas (North Dorset) Hawksley, Warren Moate, Roger
Beaumont-Dark, Anthony Heddle, John Morrison, Hon Charles (Devizes)
Berry, Hon Anthony Hogg, Hon Douglas (Grantham) Mudd, David
Blackburn, John Hooson, Tom Neale, Gerrard
Boscawen, Hon Robert Howell, Ralph (North Norfolk) Nelson, Anthony
Boyson, Dr Rhodes Hunt, John (Ravensbourne) Newton, Tony
Bright, Graham Hurd, Hon Douglas Normanton, Tom
Brinton, Tim Jopling, Rt Hon Michael Onslow, Cranley
Brown, Michael (Brigg & Sc'thorpe) Kellett-Bowman, Mrs Elaine Page, John (Harrow, West)
Bruce-Gardyne, John Kershaw, Anthony Page, Rt Hon Sir Graham (Crosby)
Buck, Antony Le Marchant, Spencer Page, Richard (SW Hertfordshire)
Cadbury, Jocelyn Lester, Jim (Beeston) Prentice, Rt Hon Reg
Carlisle, John (Luton West) Lloyd, Peter (Fareham) Price, David (Eastleigh)
Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln) Loveridge, John Proctor, K. Harvey
Chapman, Sydney Lyell, Nicholas Rathbone, Tim
Clark, Sir William (Croydon South) Macfarlane, Nell Ronton, Tim
Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe) MacGregor, John Sainsbury, Hon Timothy
Colvin, Michael McNair-Wilson, Michael (Newbury) Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)
Cope, John McNair-Wilson, Patrick (New Forest) Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)
Dean, Paul (North Somerset) Major, John Skeet, T. H. H.
Dorrell, Stephen Marlow, Tony Speed, Keith
Dover, Denshore Mates, Michael Speller, Tony
Dykes, Hugh Mather, Carol Spicer, Jim (West Dorset)
Eyre, Reginald Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin Spicer, Michael (S Worcestershire)
Fenner, Mrs Peggy Mayhew, Patrick Stainton, Keith

to make whatever amendments are necessary.

I am satisfied, and the Government are advised, that the regulations are intra vires. I believe that there is no ground whatsoever for doubting the judgment and wisdom of the Health and Safety Commission in bringing forward the regulations as representing an improvement in the safeguarding of those at work, for whom it is responsible.

I commend the regulations to the House, and ask that the prayer be rejected.

Question put:—

The House divided: Ayes 64, Noes 105.

Stanbrook, Ivor Wakeham, John Winterton, Nicholas
Stevens, Martin Walker, Bill (Perth & E Perthshire) Wolfson, Mark
Strading Thomas, J. Waller, Gary Young, Sir George (Acton)
Taylor, Teddy (Southend East) Warren, Kenneth
Tebbit, Norman Watson, John TELLERS FOR THE NOES:
Thompson, Donald Wheeler, John Mr. Peter Brooke and
Thorne, Neil (Ilford South) Wickenden, Keith Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
Waddington, David

Question accordingly negatived.