HC Deb 22 October 1986 vol 102 cc1259-63
Mrs. Clwyd

I beg to move amendment No. 5, in page 6, line 46, at end insert 'except section 125(1)(b)'.

Mr. Speaker

With this it will be convenient to take amendment No. 6, in page 7, line 9, at end insert 'except section 86(c)'.

Mrs. Clwyd

The amendments exclude the repeal of the sections of the Mines and Quarries Act 1954 and the Factories Act 1961, which specify that women shall not be employed for more than four and a half hours without an interval of at least half an hour for a meal or a rest. I cannot believe that the Government intend to persist with their petty and mean proposals. I cannot believe that any reasonable person would consider it unreasonable for someone to have a break of half an hour at the end of four and a half hours of work.

I have observed Conservative Members who have been in the Chamber this evening and only a few of them have managed to stay in their places for more than one hour without leaving for a break. I would hardly say that sitting on the Government Benches has meant very much effort for them. The people that I am talking about, however, put a great deal of effort into their work and reasonably expect to have a break after working for such a period.

My hon. Friend the Member for St. Helens, North (Mr. Evans) talked earlier this evening about research carried out by Labour Research into 92 firms, from which it was found that a substantial number of firms did not have any organised break for their workers. If the sections of the Mines and Quarries Act 1954 and the Factories Act 1961 to which the amendments relate are repealed, I suspect that many more unscrupulous employers will expect their employees to continue to work unreasonable periods without a proper rest.

We have had gratuitous advice from Ministers on eating healthily. Surely it is important from the point of view of someone's health and welfare that he should have reasonable time allotted to him to take a rest break or a meal break at the end of a period of work. I cannot believe that the Minister will not agree that the amendments should be supported.

I had direct experience of an unscrupulous employer when I worked during a school holiday. Ministers are fond of talking about occasions when they worked in the baking industry, and perhaps they would like to hear about the time when I worked during a school holiday at Chester zoo. I was employed in a buttery, scraping butter extremely thinly on pieces of bread. I was also engaged in interminably cutting slices of ice cream because the school holiday was in the middle of a heat wave. After a week of working without a break from 9 o'clock until 5 o'clock in the afternoon, I asked the manageress of the department when we could expect a break. She said, "If you don't like it, leave."

9.45 pm

That was quite a long time ago, but obviously because of the present economic circumstances millions of people, for fear of losing their job, will not protest about poor working conditions. It is well documented that the health of those in the lower economic earning groups is worse than that of people in other economic earning groups. Surely it is important, for the health and welfare of those people, perhaps more than others because they are less able to protect themselves, that we in the House of Commons should ensure that there is protection for them. Civilised terms and conditions of employment should be laid down for all employees—not only women but men.

It is hypocritical for the Government to suggest that to carry out their commitment — I put a question mark over the word "commitment" — to promote equal opportunities in employment between men and women and to remove unnecessary and outdated legislation, none of which has been proved tonight to be outdated or unnecessary, the removal of burdens on employers and of restrictions in respect of work, rest and meal breaks is essential. What utter nonsense. The Government are trying to give some unscrupulous employers a licence to exploit their employees. Apparently, there will be no consultation with the people on the shop floor. Their protection rights are being thrown away. Employers will persuade workers on changes, and we know all about employers and their methods of persuasion.

Surely Parliament's job is to protect hours and conditions of work, or is this yet another example of the Government eroding rights that have been fiercely fought for by trade unions for over a century? I found it particularly ironic to listen to the Minister suggesting that the Baking Industry (Hours of Work) Act was trivial legislation. Workers fought for over 100 years to get it on the statute book. It was a previous more enlightened Conservative Government who eventually supported it, yet the present Government are expecting us to believe that there is no longer any point in that protection.

Compared with those in every other Western industrialised country, workers in this country are still having to fight fiercely for their welfare and rights. Tonight the Government are putting yet another nail in the coffin of the efforts that have been made over the years by people who have fought for those workers and their rights. We should be ashamed that it took more than 100 years to get the legislation on the statute book when in other countries such as Finland, Norway, Denmark and West Germany such legislation existed early in this century.

The Government say that things will be made more favourable for employers. They occasionally toss in a comment about how nice it will be for the workers. They are not even pretending that tonight because women will not be able to avoid the exploitation that will be enabled if the legislation is passed unamended. Their collective bargaining strengths are likely to be weak, when families are dependent on their income. Too little consideration has been given to the knock-on effect of the repeals on families.

It is unclear what effect the removal of restrictions on women's hours will have on arrangements for the whole work force in respect of meals, rest breaks and rest days. Arguably men as well as women have benefited from the so-called restrictive legislation in the past, in that employers who have been obliged to accept statutory restrictions for women have found it simplest to allow them for men too, although men have no statutory right to meal breaks or rest days.

We should like this legislation to be extended to men. If the Government do not support our amendments, it will be a step back into the dark ages and will show Britain to be far behind other European countries in welfare rights and the protection of workers.

Mr. Lee

I say with tongue in cheek that I am pleased that the Opposition have accepted, albeit reluctantly, that it is no longer necessary to retain statutory restrictions on the total hours women may work either each day or during a week. That will enable women to participate in overtime working if they wish and to be generally more flexible on overtime if that is what they and their employers want.

I am genuinely puzzled as to why the Opposition do not extend the same logic to the restrictions governing spells of work and rest intervals. The Government are not saying that women ought to be forced to work much longer spells against their wills. In very few circumstances would it be sensible for the employer to ask them to work longer spells and for the women to agree to that. I mention the example of Chester zoo used by the hon. Member for Cynon Valley (Mrs. Clwyd).

Why should women not be capable of arranging their rest breaks and their total hours without the clumsy intervention of the law? The reasoning seems especially strange given that many women do not rely on statutory intervention to regulate meal and rest intervals in other sectors of the economy apart from mines, quarries and factories.

When Lord Wedderburn introduced similar amendments in the other place, he asked what was wrong with legislation in relation to spells of work. The answer is that we simply do not believe it to be necessary. Such matters are more effectively organised by individual or collective agreement when the circumstances and needs of the employees and employer can be taken into account. There is no justification for such restrictions remaining only for women working in mines, quarries and factories. Such restrictions are discriminatory and, where women must take compulsory meal breaks for which they are not paid, they can be disadvantageous.

The available evidence on health and safety is inconclusive. Dr. Harrington said in a summary of his review that fatigue has an objective concept, and was of dubious long-term significance to health. He also said that fatigue leading to increased errors and diminished performance could be offset by improved motivation and the appropriate use of work breaks. That is not to say that the breaks need to he inflexibly laid down by statute. Operational demands often require more adaptable arrangements than the existing legal provisions allow for. Furthermore, the better conditions prevail in our factories compared to the era when the legislation was first introduced, and that may, as the Equal Opportunities Commission noted in paragraph 381 of its 1979 report, obviate the need for formal meal breaks. Operatives may be content to stay at or near their work stations for longer periods if this meets the needs of the process.

The argument has been put that just because statutory rest intervals are not appropriate elsewhere it does not mean that they are inappropriate for mines, quarries and factories. But equally no convincing argument has been made as to why mines, quarries and factories should be a special case. Why should discriminatory restrictions remain only for women in those sectors? We are convinced that it is totally anachronistic and anomalous for these narrow restrictions to remain. Accordingly, I strongly urge that the amendment should be withdrawn.

Mrs. Clwyd

The Minister's response does not surprise me. He mentioned Dr. Harrington and was selective in the quotes that he took from Dr. Harrington's report. He did not mention that Dr. Harrington recognised evidence linking gastric and duodenal ulcers with shift work. He believed that digestive disorders were one and a half to two times more severe in shift workers, and that their ulcer rate was twice that of day workers. He said: There is reason to believe that nightshift work may well affect the digestive system. The programme outlined by the Minister, which does not even allow for a statutory break, will no doubt lead to even more digestive problems. How can he expect us to believe that he is serious about health when he makes such ludicrous suggestions?

The Minister mentioned the Health and Safety Executive. Despite all the protestations of Conservative Members about the role that the executive will play, the truth is that under this Government the Health and Safety Executive has had its powers reduced every year since 1979. The Health and Safety inspectorate has also been reduced under this Government. Nowadays, some factories are not even visited once in 10 years. How can the Minister expect us to take his protestations seriously?

It is ludicrous to suggest that women will have some sort of collective bargaining power, because many of them are not in trade unions and have no bargaining muscle. In 1986, I would have expected the House to recognise the need to protect both male and female workers. Instead, the legislation is being repealed, and that will take us back 15 years.

Amendment negatived.

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