LEAD PAINT (PROTECTION AGAINST POISONING) BILL. (Hansard, 11 November 1926)

§ LORD DESBOROUGH
My Lords, this Bill, as your Lordships are well aware, is a matter which has long exercised those interested in the welfare of persons who are engaged in this industry. Owing to the poisonous effect of the lead paint, there is no doubt that it has to a certain extent damaged those who have had to use it. It is not denied for one moment 631 that there is a very large number of cases which require amelioration, and that makes the Government all the more determined, if possible, to pass this Bill into law as soon as they can. There is no doubt that the opposition to this Bill, if any, or the Amendments proposed, would be in view of the criticism that the Convention of Geneva has not been ratified. I should like to point out that in any case, even if the Geneva Convention, which in certain circumstances does not exclude the use of lead paint for interiors, were ratified, there would have to be Regulations, because the prohibition provision in this Convention of Geneva does not touch any outside painting at all, and the men engaged in the industry would certainly require the measure of protection which we hope will be afforded by Regulations under this Bill. I think it might also be stated that when a Bill was introduced in 1924 to ratify the Convention, Mr. Henderson said that in any case he would proceed with it even if the prohibition clause were struck out, as it was absolutely necessary to have Regulations.
The Government do not intend to advocate an indefinite postponement of the other and bigger question; but they say that there must be Regulations and they hope the Bill will be able to be passed before Christmas as they are absolutely necessary for the protection of those engaged in this somewhat dangerous business. In their view it would be absolutely impossible, owing to the state of public business and to the very large opposition there is in many quarters, to pass a Prohibition Bill. Therefore they would urge the House to pass this Bill which, anyhow, will make the position of the operative a great deal safer than it is at present. The workman now is not protected at all and it is high time that some measure of protection, the largest measure of protection possible in the circumstances, should be given to him. There is also this to be said, that since the discussions took place at Geneva methods such as the use of waterproof sandpapers have been devised which enable wet rubbing to be done instead of dry rubbing and that certainly would make the industry a great deal safer than it is at present. The danger arises from the dust which comes from the paint, which is chiefly caused by the 632 present practice of dry rubbing. I hope that your Lordships' House will give a Second Reading to the Bill which has passed through another place, in view of the necessity of something being done without further delay for the protection of the men engaged in this, from some points of view, deleterious industry.
I do not think I need go into all the arguments which were brought forward at Geneva. This is the position of the Government at the present time. If this Bill is not passed enabling Regulations to be made there will be nothing done to protect the workmen until some future time—I do not know how far distant it may be—when the Convention of Geneva might perhaps be ratified. I have given, I think, the principal arguments in favour of giving this Bill a Second Reading, and I hope it will be passed before Christmas. I do not think it will in any way prejudice the passing of the bigger measure later on if such is the desire of Parliament; but it is very essential that these Regulations should be brought into force if possible without delay. I do not know that it is necessary to go through the Bill: but Clause 1 provides for Regulations as to the use of lead paint and Clause 2 prohibits the employment of women and young persons in painting buildings with lead paint. Then there are clauses providing for the application of certain provisions of the Factory and Workshop Act, 1901, the keeping of registers, returns, etc., the power to take samples, and so on. A great many of these clauses will no doubt be discussed in Committee. I venture to hope that your Lordships' House will now give a Second Reading to the Bill in all the circumstances of the case, and I beg to move accordingly.

§ LORD ARNOLD
My Lords, the noble Lord in presenting this measure to your Lordships for Second Reading has, I hold, made out a case for what the Government is doing which is far too favourable. I think this measure ought to be scrutinised with the greatest care. The Government itself admits—the noble Lord did two or three times inferentially in his remarks—that the Bill is in the nature of a compromise. I think it was claimed in another place that it was half 633 a loaf and that it was better to have half a loaf than no bread. That is putting the case far too high, as I hope to prove to your Lordships. When the Labour Government were in office they introduced a Bill to deal with this matter which was on very different lines from this one. It is the view of the Labour Party that the use of lead paint for internal work should be prohibited altogether, and at the Convention at Geneva in 1921 this country and a great many other countries as well agreed to that—all, I think with the exception of one country. The delegate of this country was Sir Montagu Barlow, who agreed to that course being followed.
I am quite aware that the Government, in defending themselves against the charge of breaking this agreement, fell back upon the view that the vote given by Sir Montagu Barlow was a qualified vote. In fact, they rely upon this statement of Sir Montagu Barlow when he came back to this country. He did vote at this Convention in 1921 for the prohibition of lead paint in interior work, but when he came back to the House of Commons he said:— I felt, at the time, doubt whether, in view of the speed at which the compromise had been inevitably worked out and voted, difficulties might not arise in the future. With a caution which subsequent events have certainly justified. I explained that that vote was given solely on the basis of the compromise being a satisfactory one acceptable to all. I am bound to say that I think it is a very strange proceeding to hold that you are not bound by a vote owing to a subsequent statement of that sort.
As I understand it, when the Convention met at Geneva there was in effect agreement by all parties concerned, substantial agreement, and it was only subsequent to the vote given by Sir Montagu Barlow that certain persons began to try to alter what had been arranged. It is noteworthy that before this vote was given and before Sir Montagu Barlow made that qualification after his return to this country, he went this far at Geneva. He said:— It redounds to the credit of this great Conference that we have now come to an agreement, which I understand is satisfactory to all parties, not only employers and workers, but also to the Governments concerned. Under those circumstances it would be ten thousand pities—it would be more than that; it would be a calamity—if through any technical reasons relating to 634 the quorum this Convention was not filially and legally adopted. Under these circumstances, and on the basis of this compromise, agreed to by all concerned, and in order to avoid difficulty with regard to the machinery, the British Government's vote will be passed in favour of the Convention. Really, it seems to me that matters at Geneva would get into hopeless confusion if a delegate could go there and give the vote of his country on a very important matter, with some sort of qualification that: "I give this Note, but on the understanding that there is to be no difficulty afterwards." That neutralises the whole thing.
This brings me to the point which I am sorry to make but it is one that was made frequently in another place. The noble Lord naturally did not refer to it here, but we do regard this abrogation—that is what it comes to—of the agreement of that Convention as a serious thing, going back really as it does on our undertaking at Geneva. At any rate, that is our view of it. We say that it is not sufficient to do as this Bill does. It is not sufficient to say: "We will not prohibit the use of load paint but we propose, so far as interior work is concerned, and, to some extent" (as the noble Lord indicated), "as far as exterior works are concerned, to regulate those matters" That does really break the agreement which was come to. I think it is a very serious matter that that should be done by Great Britain, because this is the country which has often taken the lead at Geneva in matters for the improvement of industrial conditions. Therefore I cannot agree with the view put by the noble Lord that this is a sort of temporary measure and, if it does not succeed, then it will be, perfectly easy, apparently, to go and pass the Bill for total prohibition. If that could be done then it could be done now.
It is really not correct for the noble Lord to say that this Government cannot pass it. The Government has a majority of 200 in another place and of about 70 to one in your Lordships' House, and the Opposition in another place would support them in a Bill and therefore it would be an easy thing to pass it. It cannot be argued that that cannot be done. The other countries who were at Geneva in 1921 and signed this Convention were under the impression that Great Britain also had signed it and 635 when they find that, as a matter of fact, we are not carrying it out that will produce a state of things which may lead to considerable difficulty and will, I am afraid, make it, not easy later on perhaps to pass the Bill; because other countries may, after what we are doing here, perhaps themselves go back upon what was arranged at Geneva.
The noble Lord has spoken about this work which involves lead paint as deleterious and I do not think, if I may be allowed to say so, that he put the case quite as strongly as it should be put, because this lead paint poisoning is a very terrible thing. I will not go into great detail, but the statistics for some years show that there have been some hundreds of cases of lead poisoning in this country and, probably, each year perhaps forty to fifty deaths, apart from those who suffer and do not die. That, in my view, is a serious matter. I do not think the Government will deny those figures, but what they say is that these Regulations will be sufficient to stop the injury that has been done by this lead paint.
Take the pottery industry. There has been regulation with regard to the use of white lead in the pottery industry for many years—for thirteen years, I think—and yet, despite that fact, in 1923 in that industry there were forty-four cases of this lead poisoning called plumbism and eleven deaths. In 1924 there were forty-seven cases and eighteen deaths; in 1925, forty-seven cases, but I have not the number of deaths for that year. I believe, however, that this year in one works alone there were three cases of lead-poisoning and that one has been fatal. Therefore, it does appear that the Regulations are not sufficient and these facts very much enforce the case for total prohibition for which we in the Labour Party stand. I know it may be suggested that where white lead is actually manufactured lead-poisoning does not occur. I believe that is so, but I understand that the conditions are different when you are producing this lead in masses and where many scores of workmen are engaged. In those cases the Regulations, I believe, can to a large extent be made effective, but it is a very different thing when you are dealing with scattered workers, with two or three working in one place. Therefore, 636 I am afraid that this Bill will not prove effective and, although I quite admit that the total number of persons who may get lead-poisoning in relation to the total population is small, yet it is a very terrible thing for those who do suffer and a very sad thing that there are those deaths, the figures of which I have given.
I do feel that it is a great pity the Government have not stood firm by the Convention of 1921. They would not, as I have already stated, have the smallest difficulty in getting that Bill through the House. I will not go into the technical questions involved, even if I were competent to do so, such as whether the process of wet-rubbing is as satisfactory as the noble Lord says. I am informed it is not and that probably it would do little or nothing to mitigate the evil. However, in Committee, we may have an opportunity of discussing those points in detail. I have ventured, I hope not at too great length, to put the point of view of the Labour Party and I repeat my regret that the measure has come before us in this very minor form and that it does not give full confirmation to what we agreed to in 1921.

§ VISCOUNT HALDANE
My Lords, there is only one point on which I wish to add a few words to what my noble friend Lord Arnold has said. The noble Lord who moved the Second Reading of the Bill, did so in a very conciliatory speech ant said that the Government had not lost sight of the larger question, by which I assume he meant prohibition in accordance with the Geneva Resolution. That is quite right. The Bill, as far as it goes, will make things better, and I assume that it represents what the Government consider to be the minimum required for safety. It is upon that that the question which is in my mind arises.
Women are not to be allowed to work at the industry, even on the new footing on which this Bill proposes to put it. I have some reason to suppose that a noble Lord on the other side of the House may draw attention to this when we come to the Committee stage and, in anticipation of his doing so, I shall be glad if the Government would give us a little more information than they have given us at the present time on the question why women are supposed to be more susceptible to plumbism than men. 637 I have read, of course, the statements made in the House of Commons by the chief medical officer and others who took part in the discussion but those were very general statements and very vague. Nothing has impressed me more for a long time than the danger of accepting perfectly general medical statements of this kind without reasons being given and without reasons which have been investigated being given, and I would suggest to the noble Lord that before this Bill comes into Committee he should be prepared to give us in some detail the reasons for which it is said that plumbism is a greater danger to women than it is to men.
What I want to get at is the general thesis that women are more susceptible to this than are men. I confess that I am sceptical on the subject and I would like to know the scientific grounds by which the statements to that effect have been supported. I assume that the Government have made some inquiry into this. It may be that they cannot give us the information within the time that will elapse before the Committee stage is reached, but I think they really ought to refer a question of this kind to the body that is there to undertake such investigation, I mean the Committee of Civil Research. It is a crying question on the part of women why they should be treated differentially on any occasion and you have to justify it on every occasion that you do it. It has not been justified on this occasion except by vague statements, I know not on what foundation, and I therefore would be glad if the noble Lord would do two things—(1), give us such scientific information as the Government possess in favour of the exclusion of women from this industry; and (2), consider the question of referring what doubtless is a very obscure scientific matter to the Committee of Civil Research or some other body, in order that we may get definite knowledge on the subject. I think that by doing so not only would he help us but relieve himself from a series of attacks which are not likely to cease for some time to come.

LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH
My Lords, I was glad to hear what fell from the noble and learned Viscount opposite because I was going to state my intention of moving an Amendment when we get to 638 the Committee stage that that part of Clause 2, which prohibits the employment of women in painting, should be dropped and that that exclusion should be omitted from the Bill. I know there are certain medical reasons, which really have become almost a dogma in the medical profession, that women are more susceptible than men, and I would like to reinforce what the noble and learned Viscount said and to ask that we should be told quite definitely what inquiry has been made into that particular subject and on what authority the statement is made, for unless it can be really substantiated very definitely I hope your Lordships will insist that this prohibition be taken out of the Bill. I am quite aware that the prohibition is put in with the very best intention of protecting the women who are engaged in this dangerous trade, but that sort of protective legislation in my opinion nearly always does a great deal more harm than good because it only means that women are prevented from profitable occupation. It means that women's labour is forced to remain unorganised, and it prevents women attaining in industry a position which I think, both from the point of view of men and women, it would be much better they should occupy. The Committee stage is perhaps a better moment for developing the argument, and therefore I content myself by saying that I wish to put down an Amendment.