HL Deb 08 December 1954 vol 190 cc269-87

2.48 p.m.

LORD CROOK rose to call attention to the serious loss of lives, the number of persons injured, and the financial loss to the country, involved in accidents in the home; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, your Lordships are invited again and again in the course of the years to discuss problems arising out of the dreadful toll of deaths on the road, but rarely, if ever, are your Lordships invited to discuss the closely related subject of the loss by death from accidents in the homes. I am sure, therefore, that your Lordships will not object to devoting half an hour this afternoon to a major problem of this type. It is a problem which involves some 7,000 fatal home accidents in the course of every year in Great Britain, and perhaps as many as 2 million non-fatal accidents requiring hospital treatment.

By poster, film and propaganda in general, and by the use of committees, we have sought over the years to stir the imagination of the people to deal with the dreadful loss on the roads. Might it not pay us to devote a little of the same attention and a little money to trying to take death out of the kitchen? We take tremendous trouble trying to teach children how to go on living although they use the roads on the way to school. My suggestion to your Lordships is that a little more attention might be given to keeping death out of their home life, so as to make it more certain that they can set off to go to school. Astonishing though it may seem to many members of the public, more children under fifteen years of age are kilted in their homes than die on the roads from accidents on the roads and all other forms of accidents put together. We sit and concern ourselves in this House about the infectious disease returns from the Chief Medical Officer of the Ministry of Health, yet more children under fifteen years of age die as a result of accidents in the home than from any one single infectious disease reported in that Return. The suffering, the horror, the permanent disfiguration and the crippling of men, women and children is, I suggest, sufficient to disturb us anyway; but the slightest thought that we give to the individual's problem leads us, if we think on a national scale, to the terrific economic burden thrown on the country in general.

In addition to the 7,000 people who will die as a result of accidents in the home before twelve months today, there will be treated in the hospitals between one million and two million cases, while as many more minor accidents, not reported to the hospitals, will be dealt with by the medical men at home. Unfortunately, we have no provision in this country for the notification of accidents at home in the way that we have in respect of accidents on the road. Within the last couple of years the London County Council have made a survey, at the request of the Ministry of Health, which has given us some valuable information. The survey was based on cases treated in certain hospitals, particular use being made of the statistics of the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary and the Birmingham Accident Hospital, where special attention has been given to the question of records of home accidents, These records, I regret to say, show a normal home accident rate of 4 per cent. of the population per annum.

The cost of the hospital treatment of these cases as long ago as 1949 was put at between £4 million and £5 million, so that we may assume that, with the increased costs from 1949 to now, £5 million per annum is no wrong estimate. But that figure, of course, represents only the actual immediately visible cost of hospital treatment. To it must be added the cost of providing sickness benefits and, in some cases, financial relief from other funds. Local authorities allocate health visitors, home nurses or home helps to a large number of these cases, all involving a charge on the local rates. But, of course, that is as nothing compared to the loss of potential production to the country caused by accidents of this kind. We become concerned when we learn that fatal accidents in factories average two a day; but fatal accidents in and about the home total twenty-four every day, which shows something of the measure of potential production lost, even allowing for all the children and aged people who are included in the twenty-four.

Your Lordships will appreciate that, in respect of this hospital treatment, other people and other factors come into examination. Here we are, so short of hospital beds that people requiring hospitalisation for serious operations are unable to be accommodated and have to be kept on a waiting list for very many months; yet literally millions of bed-days are involved every year in the treatment of those who meet with accidents in the home. I have on the Order Paper, as your Lordships will know, in the hope of discussion on it at a later date, a Motion on the shortage of nurses in this country. A reduction in the number of accidents in the home would be one way of dealing with the shortage of nurses, because at present we see nurses, and the medical profession, wasting their services in hospital activity which could be avoided by greater care in and around the home.

I understand that the survey to which I have referred showed that of the £5 million per annum cost, no less than £1 million per annum was due to burns and scalds, and that, of last year's deaths, over 700 resulted from that apparently simple cause. Recent Parliamentary action may in due course have some effect in reducing the total number of deaths from this cause. Your Lordships will recall spending some time, a couple of years ago, on the consideration of the Heating Appliances (Fireguards) Act, which came into operation on October 1 of this year. In due course, we hope that the compulsory application of fire guarding may save some of these preventable accidents. I feel bound to point out that it will take a long time under existing legislation, because Dr. Leonard Colebrook, the former Director of the Medical Research Council Burns Unit at the Birmingham Accident Hospital, who presented the main argument for the legislation of 1952, has pointed out that the Act does not apply to millions of unguarded electric, gas and oil heaters already in use in homes, offices, hospitals and other public buildings; nor does it apply in any way to open coal fires. Suitable guards for every type of gas and electric fire are available, of course, but unfortunately not many people make proper use of them.

One of the first essentials, it seems to me, is renewed propaganda about fireguards, drawing attention, in addition, to the new penalties for persons who cause children to be subjected to grave risks from lack of fireguards—a matter for which your Lordships provided in the new 1952 Act dealing with children and young persons. I understand that some local authorities are hiring out fireguards to people unable to afford to purchase them, and I suggest to the Minister who is to reply that that idea might be examined to see whether it is worth while extending the scheme.

I know that the Minister, when he replies, will be able to tell us something of the work which has been going on as a result of the setting up, in 1947, of the inter-departmental committee, on which I believe the Ministries of Health, Education and Works, and the Home Office, have been co-operating. I know that that committee have a general view that education of the individual in the home is the best way of preventing accidents. They feel, I think, that posters, pamphlets and films, whilst able to play a part, are not effective on their own. I would accept that general view, although I confess that if the large quantities of posters and film propaganda now devoted to road accidents are regarded as effective, it is difficult to see why similar propaganda cannot be equally of value in dealing with accidents in the home.

I was a little surprised to learn of the cancellation of the grant to the Home Safety Department of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents. For four years, up to 1952, the Home Office had given the Society a grant of £2,000 a year, which enabled them to produce very effective posters, propaganda and leaflets, of which extensive use was made by the child welfare centres and maternity centres of many local authorities. It seemed to me that, if that activity was thought worth while, and was justified during the four years up to 1952, there was some case for the grant in 1953 and 1954, and will be in the years ahead. Perhaps the Minister will be able, when replying, to tell us something about that matter. I would also ask him (I gave him notice of most of these points) the result of the inquiries which the inter-departmental committee made o n the three major problems: first, to secure as much information as possible about accidents in the home; secondly, to encourage Government Departments to take action to prevent accidents; and thirdly, to try to interest other people and organisations in the subject.

So far as the first purpose, that of securing information, is concerned, I believe that it was felt last year that this matter could most fruitfully be approached through the existing organisations covering the health services. I wonder whether, in the result, any progress has been made in the collection and analysis of information as to accidents, so as to provide indices of trends. I know, of course, that the Annual Abstract of Statistics, which was published as recently as October last, shows that of the 7,000 deaths, over 4,000 were due to falls, ever 1,000 to poisoning and over 700 to fire or hot substances. I suggest that what is needed, additional to that and to the Registrar General's further analysis, is an analysis of the accident reports in the health visitors' records: perhaps the reporting of home accidents by the district nursing associations, the extraction of details of home accidents from ambulance service records, and, possibly, reports by teachers as to the home accidents with which they become acquainted through their experience in schools.

I know that all those suggestions involve a task of great magnitude which cannot be lightly undertaken by the Government or by local authorities; but I also know that the L.C.C. Public Health Department, which has been most prominent in this matter, has been doing that all that it can in this connection. Indeed, that Council, like others, has been very conscious of its responsibilities in matters of design. It has endeavoured, in the construction of the flats and houses for which it is responsible, to see that the design aims at safety. I should like to know from the Minister what steps, if any, have been taken to see that the improvement of design, from the point of view of safety, is being brought home to local builders who are again entering speculatively into the production of houses. The experience of the L.C.C. has shown that balustrades should eliminate footholds which encourage children to climb on them. It is not good enough to make sun balconies which merely look good; they must be safe in their use. Windows must also be completely safe. The L.C.C. windows have been designed to be cleaned from the inside, and where they open on side angles, safety catches have been fitted, with casement-stays to limit initial opening.

I know that it is useless to suggest that there should be legislation making this kind of thing, compulsory, and I am not suggesting anything of the sort; but I would suggest that something in the way of propaganda or approach by the appropriate departments to those dealing with standards and designs might be of value. I went into one set of flats recently converted from a house, to see what is a common problem—that of meters. I know that gas and electricity meters must be put out of the reach of children, but that does not mean that they need be put over a doorway, on a shelf seven feet six inches high, so that they can be reached only with great difficulty, either by the residents or by the inspectors coming in to read the meters, and then only by getting on to a pair of rickety steps. I suggest that all matters of that. kind can be studied.

Then there are the poor general standard and faulty design to be found in many of the things sold for use in the home. There is the constant sale of very cheap electrical goods or electrical parts, the insulation of which is not too good, and the use of which is not always understood by the purchaser; the sale of things like a hair-dryer, without an accompanying warning that the use of the hair-dryer in a bathroom is a potential danger; the sale of washing machines with electric roller wringers, without effective safety devices fitted to the rollers. There are many other things, such as the building in kitchens of doors which swing open instead of sliding away to be effectively enclosed.

I have kept your Lordships long enough. My purpose was to stimulate some interest in this subject. Perhaps I may now sum up to your Lordships what I have tried to say. First, because the death toll in respect of accidents in the home fails to present itself in a dramatic form, the public are not aware of it. Disasters on a railway, to an aircraft, or in a coal mine are all dramatised, and naturally find their way to the front page of a newspaper. Yet, out of the average of forty-five deaths a day from accidents in this country, whilst only one comes from the railway, one from aircraft and one from the coal mines, no fewer than twenty-four are the result of accidents in the home. Twenty-four people will die between now and this time to-morrow from accidents in the home, many of which are most clearly preventable.

In the year that lies ahead of us a great many children under fifteen will die from road, railway, air and boating accidents; but many more than that number of children will die from accidents in the home. We, who boast of all that we have done and are doing for our children, should realise that, with children under five years of age, fatal home accidents are the third largest cause of loss of life in this country. Not only is that the fact, but in many more cases deformity and disablement follow, and distress is caused both to the victims and to the relatives who anxiously look on. We spend £5 million a year on hospital treatment. We occupy hospital beds in respect of home accidents over long periods of time when we could use the beds for other purposes. We throw this undue burden on our already depleted nursing staffs. We drain away the nation's money in health benefits, and in local authority expenditure on home helps and the like; and, with it all, millions of man-days are lost to the productivity of this country.

We, who have a wonderful record of productivity by the workers of this country, who pride ourselves on the wonderful way in which, over the past 100 years, we have built up a magnificent factory inspectorate, who boast of the safety arrangements in our coal mines and our quarries, leave this position in which more than half of the people who die every day die from accidents occurring inside their homes. I therefore move this Motion this afternoon to try to rivet attention on the need for taking the utmost possible steps to secure that people are at least as safe in their homes as they are on the roads. My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.

3.8 p.m.

LORD AMULREE

My Lords, I must first express my great pleasure that the noble Lord who moved this Motion has thought fit to bring this subject before your Lordships to-day. I think he has shown, with the figures he gave, that this is a very serious problem, and one in regard to which the public at large do not realise the dangers which they run in their homes. I have a great interest in this Motion because, about two years ago, I introduced into your Lordships' House the Fireguards Bill, which your Lordships were good enough to pass without any discussion at all. Those are my interests in the matter.

There is one matter for which I should like to apologise: I have not given the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, who is to reply notice of the points that I intend to raise. Unfortunately I have had rather a bad cold, and it was not until this morning that I knew that I should be able to come here. I hope the noble Lord will forgive me. One point was raised by the noble Lord who moved this Motion. He referred to the Colebrook Burns Unit in Birmingham. I think it is about six or seven years ago that the Minister of Health promised that similar burns units would be established at some time in other parts of the country. So far as I know, nothing has been done to implement that promise. I wonder whether the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, could look into that matter, because it seems to me to be rather important.

Although the Act which Parliament passed, the Fireguards Act, was of some value in ensuring that electric, gas and other fires would in future be sold with a proper guard, most burns are caused by coal fires. The figures for fatal burns from coal fires are about 130 annually, whereas for electric fires the figure is seventy, for gas fires fifty-three and for other fires about fifty-eight. That shows that the coal fire is still the main cause of trouble. It is very difficult indeed to take proceedings under present legislation for burns from coal fires, because, so far as I am aware, someone has to be fatally burned before the local authority can take action in the courts against the family, and no one would want to take proceedings against the family of a child who has just been burnt to death. But action must be taken to ensure that fireguards are used. Perhaps the noble Lord can tell us what the local authorities are going to do about the fire question in general, because one has read and come across rather curious cases where tenants of council houses have been discouraged from putting in the walls staples on which to fix fireguards far a coal fire because it is said that it would be unsightly and would damage the walls. If that is true—and I am told it is—it seems to be a very short-sighted policy. Local authorities should be asked to drop that practice.

Another cause of trouble—I think it may be overcome now by the Fireguards Act, but it certainly existed up to last year—is that in some new housing estates which are being erected the fire is a panel fire, either gas or electric, placed on the wall. There is no appearance of a guard around it, and it is difficult to notice where the fire is if there is not the usual mantelpiece or fender with it. I wonder whether the practice of installing fires in that way still continues. It might easily be dealt with and stopped. The health departments of some local councils have been endeavouring to see what they can do to stop accidents in the home. On some occasions the medical officer of health has tried to find out from the local hospital service the number of accidents which come into the hospitals and the story behind them. In most cases there has been a good deal of co-operation and the information has been supplied, but there are one or two cases where the hospital people have declined to collaborate because they said they were short of staff or that it took too much time. I wonder whether the noble Lord could look into that point with the Minister of Health, to ensure, that, when local authorities wish to find out about accidents in the home, the hospital service will do the best it can to supply them with the required information. It is the Ministry which has to supply the beds for the accidents, as the noble Lord, Lard Crook, has said. I should like to endorse the plea he put forward, that certain propaganda be undertaken to stop these accidents and to see whether some body which can give advice to local authorities who are building houses can be established. In that way it may be possible to ensure that the houses are made as free from potential danger of accident as possible.

If I may detain your Lordships for a moment longer, I should like to raise one or two other curious points on this subject which I do not think were mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Crook. One of the rather alarming features to the medical world is the large number of children who have been poisoned accidentally in their homes, apparently because so many more homes now are becoming rather like a chemist's shop. In the old days one did not have, many drugs in one's home, but now children appear to have a lot of rather dangerous tablets given them. Sometimes these tablets are left lying about the place. A large number of children, 169 in all, died in 1953 from taking poison by mistake. They were not trying to commit suicide; they took the poison because they thought it was something else. Of that number, one-quarter were children under the age of five. That may sound a very large number of deaths, but it has been reckoned that these is one death in twenty cases of poisoning; therefore about 800 children under the age of five are each year being poisoned by mistake in their homes, by taking tablets, medicines and things of that sort which they should not take and which are poisonous. I agree it is difficult to stop that kind of thing from happening, but think that a certain amount of propaganda directed to the education and instruction of parents to keep things like poisons locked up and out of the way of children would be beneficial. We should keep on "plugging" that point, although I realise that there are difficulties.

There is another strange point which I think is worthy of investigation. We know that the number of old people in the country is growing considerably, but we are finding out now that the number of fatal accidents among old people appears to be increasing at a faster rate than the number of old people themselves is increasing. What the reason for it is I do not know, but it is a point which might well be investigated as a curious social phenomenon. It may be because the old people are living by themselves. In any case, it is a point worth considering and one which merits some kind of investigation.

The next point is the question of whether any work is being done in connection with the inflammable qualities of clothing material, because a large number of people are being burnt to death every year owing to the fact that their garments catch fire. We find that the bulk of the material used in garments which catch fire is flannelette and, as I understand, some new substance called viscous rayon, about which I do not know but about which perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, knows something. All I know is that viscous rayon and flannelette seem to be very inflammable materials. I wonder whether some kind of work could be done by a Government chemist to find out whether the degree of inflammability cannot be cut down. It is obvious that these materials are used mainly for making nightdresses, because the bulk of the garments in which people get burned are nightdresses. Most of those nightdresses are made of flannelette or viscous rayon. I wanted to bring out these one or two points in support of the Motion moved by the noble Lord, Lord Crook.

3.18 p.m.

LORD HADEN-GUEST

My Lords, I should like to make one contribution to this debate. It is a simple one—the suggested means by which there may be brought home to mothers of children and to children themselves the dangers which they do not perhaps recognise and which they take for granted as being a normal part of the home life. What I am suggesting simply is this: that school doctors and school nurses should be asked to pay special attention to giving mothers and their children instructions about how not to use a fire and what not to do in the home. I do not want to go into all the other connected matters, but I would point out that a large proportion of accidents occur from burning or scalding. From my own experience of schools, which I may perhaps say, without immodesty, is extremely extensive, I think that this method would be a good one for giving advice to all the children in the schools and their mothers, especially if it were done by school doctors, whom mothers trust implicitly, and quite rightly, and by the school nurses, whom doctors trust even more. The school nurses and school doctors are part of the scheme and they could, without any serious detriment to the work they are doing, give extremely good advice in this matter.

THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (LORD MANCROFT)

My Lords, we are all grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Crook, for having brought this matter before the House this afternoon and for having done so in so carefully reasoned and reasonable a speech. With hardly any of the suggestions he put forward can I find any reason to disagree at all and I am grateful to him for having put his case forward in so helpful a way. We are grateful also to the noble Lord, Lord Amulree, whose work on the Fireguards Bill a year or two ago we well remember, and to the noble Lord, Lord Haden-Guest, who speaks with much authority on this subject. The timing of the noble Lord's Motion was given particular emphasis by a horrifying picture which doubtless most of us saw yesterday on the front pages of the illustrated newspapers, showing a distraught father watching his house burn down with his five children in it. After looking at that picture, I wondered, as I was preparing my remarks for to-day, as most other people must have wondered: "Could that happen here? What went wrong that ought to have prevented a disaster of that particular kind?" That picture brought home the importance of this matter with added poignancy, because it is an extremely important problem; the fact that it is a familiar, everyday one makes it no less important.

The noble Lord, Lord Crook, has given us certain interesting and frightening statistics. I should like to add one or two more to reinforce his case. In the years 1940 to 1949, 48,000 people died in this country from accidents on the roads; but over 60,000 people died from accidents in the home. That figure shows the magnitude of the problem. During last year alone 5,895 persons died from accidents in the home in England and Wales. The victims, not unnaturally, as the noble Lord, Lord Amulree, pointed out, are mostly the old and the young. Of every four victims one was under the age of fifteen and two were over sixty-five. That stands to reason, for it is the young and the old who are much more in the home, and for longer periods, than others. Among children from the ages of one to five, accidents in the home, as the noble Lord, Lord Crook, pointed out, are the third largest cause of death. That is a matter of particular interest to me as the father of two children in that age-group, and I could not help feeling as he spoke that too often people forget that when a child is burned by touching a heater or is electrocuted in the bath, it is not the fault of the child. It is perfectly clear where the fault primarily lies.

I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Amulree, when he brings forward this grave question of dangerous drugs. Any father of small children will bear me out when I say that hay-fever pills look remarkably like "Smarties." I can assure the noble Lord that this point is being considered by the interdepartmental committee. I must add that the figures I have just given are the figures for fatal accidents only. The number of nonfatal accidents is very difficult to discover; but in 1946 in the Birmingham area to which the noble Lords, Lord Crook and Lord Amulree, have referred, of 13,000 persons, 9 per cent. of children under the age of ten and 3 per cent, of adults treated in the Birmingham Accidents Hospital were treated for domestic accidents. One reaction to this whole question might be: Have we reached a stage of civilisation when really it is a case of caveat pater familias? Must the State poke its nose into everybody's home and say, "Do not allow your children to be electrocuted; do not fall downstairs; do not have your light switches put less than seven feet six inches above the mantleshelf," and so on?

A cynic would agree, but he would add that if the State does not make some interference then the taxpayer and the national economy has to pay as a result of domestic carelessness. To take one example: at the Birmingham Accidents Hospital to which I have referred, 18 per cent. of the annual intake resulted from domestic accidents. The average duration of stay for out-patients was nine days and for in-patients twenty days. As the noble Lord, Lord Crook, says, such things directly impinge on the economy of the State, particularly in Birmingham. The noble Lord gave a figure of £5 million as the cost of treatment, the figure suggested by the Standing Interdepartmental Committee on Accidents in the Home. But that figure takes no account of the loss of man hours due to these accidents which affects people far outside the home. On these points we have surely no disagreement.

The difficulty arises over the question, what is to be done? As I am responding on behalf of Her Majesty's Government, I must first address myself to the possibilities of Government action. What legislation, if any, is or has been necessary? Legislation can admittedly occasionally remove particular causes of accidents, but this is not a very fruitful subject for legislation, even with the best will in the world. Burning is the third most common type of accident, preceded only by falls and suffocation. We have the good example given by the noble Lord, Lord Amulree, of his Heating Appliances (Fireguards) Act, 1952, which noble Lords will remember prohibits the sale or letting on hire of certain kinds of gas or electric fires and oil heaters unless they are guarded up to prescribed standards. Regulations are made under the Act and, as noble Lords will know, there was a moratorium until October 1 this year for the sale of unguarded appliances made before October 1, 1953. The Act is now fully in force, but it has not yet been in force long enough to show whether any material effect will result from it.

It is perfectly true that the Act does not prevent the continued use of existing unguarded or ill-guarded fires. The effect of the Act will be gradual, but two things can be seen. It will help to ensure much better-guarded appliances in the future; and the number of fatal accidents to children from burns has, since the Act came into force, definitely been reduced. Whether that improvement results from publicity widely attending the introduction of that Act and the awareness aroused in the mind of the public about this danger, or whether it is actually due to the improved state of fireguards, we do not yet know. The Act is bringing some improvement and we hope that this Christmas will not see the normal recurrence of the disasters to which in the past we have become so painfully used.

There is another direction in which Her Majesty's Government might be able to help in this problem. There is, as noble Lords will know, a body known as the Joint Fire Research Organisation. This organisation, with the help of the Building Research Station, prepares annual statistical tables which indicate the main causes of fires. For example, according to these figures 15 per cent. of accidents were caused by fires in grates igniting clothing, bedding, furnishing and materials other than structural materials; and 12½ per cent. were due to cigarettes. I will bring to the notice of the committees of these organisations points made by the three noble Lords this afternoon concerning house building and faulty structures. I know they are already devoting considerable attention to these particular points. Another way in which possibly Her Majesty's Government can help is in the advisory service of Fire Brigades. Under the Fire Services Act of 1947, fire prevention officers can give advice on how to prevent fires and on means of escape. These officers can and do arrange talks, demonstrations, film displays and exhibitions. These services are not sufficiently widely known and fullest advantage is not taken of them. I will therefore do my best to see that this knowledge is more widely disseminated, as I think that this is a very real example of the help that can be given under Government auspices.

Then there is the Standing Inter-departmental Committee on Accidents in the Home. It is from the Fourth Report of that body, I believe, that Lord Crook has taken much of his statistical detail, and that Report now lies on the Table of your Lordships' House. May I refer your Lordships to the terms of reference of that Committee? They are: to co-ordinate departmental action in connection with the prevention of accidents in the home, and to maintain contact with other official organisations interested in the subject. This committee was appointed by my right honourable friend the Home Secretary, and is composed of members of several Government Departments—for example, the Ministry of Fuel and Power, the Ministries of Health, Housing and Local Government, Labour, and Works, the Board of Trade and, of course, the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research.

The noble Lord, Lord Crook, asked me two or three questions—of which he was good enough to give me notice—about the work of the inter-departmental committee. Stimulated by the work of the committee much more detailed information and statistics are available. I am glad to know that the noble Lord, Lord Crook, agrees that the figures published yearly, which are provided by the General Register Office, are particularly valuable. The noble Lord suggested ways in which these figures might be supplemented, and I will certainly ask the committee to look very carefully into his suggestions. The committee co-ordinates the work of Government Departments in safety work, and particularly in approaches to manufacturers to improve design of equipment, ranging from metal sinks to sunray lamps, and of all sorts of things which are potential sources of danger. I am happy to add that manufacturers are usually very co-operative; but the work is, I am afraid, undramatic. It is preventive, and in that sense it is negative.

The committee also, as its terms of reference indicate, maintains "contact with unofficial organisations interested in the subject." This is normally done by meetings with representatives of the organisations. The Fourth Report, which I recommend, has also contributed to arousing some more public interest. But the work of the committee is essentially to co-ordinate and, of course, there is a limit to what the committee can do in the sphere of publicity. I have already dealt with the question of the improvement of house equipment, and I will bring those matters to the committee's notice. I know that they are matters which the committee can profitably investigate. I think that that is all I can tell your Lordships this afternoon of the fields in which I think the Government can usefully interfere, help and advise or legislate. I repeat that I think this problem, vastly important though it is, is a difficult one to cure by legislation. It does not readily lend itself to Parliamentary guidance. May we now consider what private action can do?

I turn first of all to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents. In the last resort it rests with the public to take precautions; consequently, the most effective way of getting to the root of the problem is to spread the knowledge of accidents and how to prevent them. In this connection I am glad to know that the London County Council are running a campaign on the subject. The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents has aroused growing interest among local authorities and other organisations for the prevention of accidents. The Society works through locally organised and financed home safety committees, for which it provides literature, posters, lectures and advice. These home safety committees are set up by local authorities who can, in certain circumstances, subsidise them. The Royal Society also provides advice in the homes of the public by co-operation with district nurses—to whom the noble Lord, Lord Haden-Guest, has already referred—and with health visitors.

LORD HADEN-GUEST

My Lords, I said school nurses—the nurses who attend medical inspection in schools and who, generally speaking, keep in close contact with the schools.

LORD MANCROFT

I beg the noble Lord's pardon. I am afraid that I misunderstood him. The work of those nurses is equally of great importance.

I think I can reassure the noble Lord, Lord Crook, on one important point. He will be glad to learn that the Home Secretary has announced that he intends to resume the grant of £1,500 a year for three years to enable the Society to extend the scope of its work so that it can be wholly maintained by voluntary subscriptions. I hope that that grant will help the Society to increase the number of home safety committees, expand its lecturing work, and hold occasional regional home safety conferences to cover as wide an area of recruitment as possible and to maintain contact with existing home safety committees. Another body of whose existence I must remind the House is the British Standards Institution, and I should like to pay a tribute to the work which they have done in improving design. The specifications and codes of practice of the Institution have laid down basic standards of good workmanship, design and safety on a wide variety of domestic equipment, ranging from pressure cookers to step-ladders, and from gas fires to ironing tables, and so on. There is no statutory sanction here, but here again, I am glad to say, manufacturers have generally adopted them and have been extremely helpful. These, then, seem to me to be two or three of the chief ways in which private organisations can help in dealing with this problem.

In conclusion, let me say that the Government have done what they can. There is no complacency that enough has been done; and any step will be taken to do more if opportunity presents itself. But the opportunity for legislation does not frequently present itself, and the final responsibility rests with the individual. There is no question here, if I may say so, of trying to "pass the buck." As I have said, the final responsibility must rest with the individual, the person in the home. We naturally welcome the suggestions that noble Lords have put forward, and I can assure them that those suggestions will be very carefully considered. We shall always be happy to receive further suggestions from those of your Lordships who are interested in, and knowledgeable about, this matter. Let me repeat that the problem is a constantly recurring one, and it is constantly before us. The real task is to combat indifference, and to combat ignorance of the size of the problem and its dangers, and the possibility that, one day, the danger may come to our own homes. If this debate has done nothing more than to stress the dangers and to reinforce public warnings that have already been given, I think it will have fulfilled a very useful public purpose.

3.31 p.m.

LORD CROOK

My Lords, may I first of all thank my two noble friends who were good enough to support me. May I also thank Lord Mancroft for the reply which he has given and for some of the assurances which were contained in it. May I further say how glad I am, and how glad I know others will be, to learn of the restoration of the grant to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents in the Home. As the noble Lord rightly says, it is on societies of that kind that we must rely so much for helpful activities in this connection. I would also say how happy I was that the noble Lord referred to the British Standards Institution. In the references which I ventured to make to the question of design I bore in mind that the more the British Standards Institution's arrangements and codes are adopted by the manufacturers of this country, and the more they are recognised as the only proper ones, the more we shall get safety as well as beauty in design.

I agree with the noble Lord that little can be done by legislation, but that much can be done by encouragement and publicity of the right kind. He is so right that none can possibly argue against him when he says that, in the last resort, this is a responsibility of the people themselves. It is upon them that we must rely if we are to see this dreadful toll of lives and injuries reduced. I again thank the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, and Her Majesty's Government for the reply which has been given. I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.

Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.