HL Deb 14 July 1967 vol 284 cc1355-65

11.33 a.m.

THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, BOARD OF TRADE (LORD WALSTON)

My Lords, I beg to move that the Agriculture (Tractor Cabs) Regulations 1967 be approved. The object of these Regulations is to deal with the very serious problem of deaths due to the overturning of agricultural tractors. This, as those of your Lordships who are interested in the problem will know, is far and away the most common cause of death in agriculture. Last year, fifty-three people were killed by overturning tractors, and over the past ten years the rate has been running at an average of just over forty-two deaths per year. This represents about one-third of all the fatalities in agriculture during that period.

Over the past years many attempts have been made to deal with this serious problem by means of exhortation, education, through the Advisory Services, agricultural shows and so on; and it is fair to say that, as a result of this propaganda effort, everybody to-day connected with agriculture is well aware of the problem. But, even so, as the figures I have just quoted show, there has unfortunately been no reduction in the number of fatal accidents caused by overturning tractors. Therefore something more effective than exhortation is needed.

There are some people who believe that the key to this problem lies in the design of the tractor: that if tractors are designed with a lower centre of gravity the risk of overturning will be greatly reduced, and therefore the number of fatalities will be reduced also. That may well be so—I do not for one moment say that it is not an important line which could be pursued—but we have to face the fact that over the past forty years it has been impossible to design a tractor which is immune, in certain circumstances, from overturning. If we were to wait for such a design to appear, I am afraid we should have to wait for many years, and in the meantime many deaths would ensue. I am sure noble Lords will agree that we should not wait for that but should do all we can now to reduce these deaths.

These Regulations, I believe, will do just that. They require the use on all agricultural tractors driven by employed workers of safety cabs or safety frames designed to protect the driver from being crushed if his tractor overturns. I may say, in parenthesis, that similar Regulations were introduced in Sweden in 1959, and since that time there has been only one death from an overturning tractor, and that occurred to a driver who attempted to jump clear of the tractor instead of remaining inside the cab. It has been suggested that the danger of overturning might be increased by raising the centre of gravity of the tractor; but I do not believe this to be true. The weight of the protective cab will be a very slight addition to the tractor, and certainly no greater than that of many cabs already fitted.

To turn to the Regulations, they require that every new tractor shall be fitted with an approved safety cab or frame before being sold or let on hire for agricultural use. They will oblige the employer to ensure that every tractor driven by his workers is properly fitted with an approved cab or frame, and oblige every worker not to drive a tractor unless it is so fitted. These requirements are contained in Regulations 4 and 5; the rest are really ancillary to them.

Regulation 3 deals with the approval of safety cabs. It may be convenient if from now on I refer simply to "cab", although this term will embrace also the use of the safety frame. The Ministers will be empowered to approve safety cabs for use with particular types of tractor, and must satisfy themselves that any such cab will meet the British Standard Specification for the Safety Requirements and Testing of Safety Cabs and Frames for Agricultural Wheeled Tractors. Perhaps I should remind your Lordships that these Regulations apply only to wheeled tractors, and not to track-laying tractors, where the risk, because of the lower centre of gravity, is much less. Approved cabs will have to be marked to show that they are approved, and for which tractors, and Regulation 7 confines to the cab manufacturers the right to apply these marks unless someone else is given written consent to do so. Regulation 6 obliges the worker to report to his employer if his tractor overturns or if his safety cab or its fittings sustains damage.

Regulation 5(4) deals with the circumstances in which tractors were permitted to be used without a safety cab. There are clearly some agricultural operations in which it is impossible to use a tractor with a cab. We think the essential categories are hop-gardens, orchards, and buildings. A measure of exemption for those occasions when a cab cannot be used, and for driving to or from such work, has been provided. But these exemptions apply only when it is not reasonably practicable to use a cab. Regulation 8 includes provision for Ministers to grant specific, as distinct from general, exemptions from the Regulations. This power will mainly be used for research and development, but may also be used sparingly in respect of specialised operations or equipment which can be shown to render the use of a cab impossible. As I have indicated, these cases are expected to be few. Manufacturers know what factors they must take into account in their designs, and the British Standard includes provision for testing cabs in conditions of practical use.

The final main point concerns the dates of coming into operation. The Regulations dealing with approval and marking will come into force at once, so that certificates of approval may be issued as soon as possible in respect of cabs which are already available. The rest of the Regulations will apply to new tractors in three years' time. This is the minimum time needed to ensure adequate production of cabs for all the tractors which will have to be fitted. Tractors sold before September 1, 1970, will not be affected until seven years after that date. I know that that is a fairly long time, but obviously there must be a balance between allowing drivers and farmers to continue indefinitely using tractors without safety cabs, on the one hand, and, on the other, diverting resources to the provision and testing of cabs for a comparatively small number of different types of obsolescent tractors. I believe that ten years from now gives a reasonable balance between these two opposing points of view. In the meantime, I certainly hope that farmers will fit safety cabs as soon as they are available, both for their workers' safety and for their own peace of mind. Advice will readily be available from the Agricultural Departments.

Consultation, naturally, has taken place over the past years with all the interested organisation. They have given a great deal of help, and I am most grateful to them for having done this. I am glad to say, too, that there has been a wide measure of agreement. Unfortunately, complete agreement has not been reached with the National Farmers' Union, though the Farmers' Unions of Wales and of Scotland are in favour of these provisions. The National Farmers' Union accept that many of the points they have raised have been satisfactorily dealt with, but they still believe that research into tractor design would provide an adequate solution of the problem. But, as I have already said, it is our own view that to wait for such solution would take far too long, and that far too many avoidable deaths would ensue in the meantime.

Of course, there are several opinions as to the proper balance between the need for new safety measures and the need to avoid unreasonable interference with agricultural practice. All these matters have been gone into very thoroughly indeed, and no hasty decision has been reached. These proposals are, I believe, about right, and I am quite sure that this will be increasingly recognised over the years to come. My Lords, these are among the most important of the farm safety regulations that have been so far produced. I am sure they will reduce, and I hope eventually eliminate altogether, deaths from overturning tractors, and I commend them to your Lordships.

Moved, That the Draft Agriculture (Tractor Cabs) Regulations 1967, laid before the House on 31st May 1967, be approved.—(Lord Walston.)

11.44 a.m.

EARL FERRERS

My Lords, we are grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Walston, for introducing these new safety Regulations for tractor cabs. When one looks at the number of Regulations that have come forward in the last five, six or seven years for the safety of farmers and farm workers, I think one can only say that this is another useful addition to that list. Anyone who listens to the noble Lord, and hears that last year 53 people were killed as a result of overturning tractors, can only be glad if anything is done to prevent, or to reduce the number of, these deaths. The noble Lord said that a certain amount could be done by education, and that a certain amount of education had been embarked upon. But, of course, education in itself will not solve the problem. You can educate people as much as you like, but these accidents happen all of a sudden to people who are fully aware of the dangers involved in driving tractors. I think the reason is probably that these machines have become more mobile and more powerful, and are in more common use. At all events, I welcome any Regulations designed to avoid the occurrence of these deaths.

Nevertheless, there are drawbacks to this scheme. Putting a cab on a tractor very often limits its usefulness. In the past five years the appearance of cabs on tractors has been a relatively new thing, and this has been done mostly for the purpose of comfort of the operator, and not for the purpose of safety. But, of course, they do limit the visibility, and there is no doubt that making it compulsory that all tractors should have cabs is bound to have certain drawbacks.

Regulation 3(7)(b)(ii) refers to the tests which the Minister may require before approving a certain cab. Do the manufacturers know what these tests are? Do they know what specifications will now be required of them? I ask this because a number of cabs are being produced at the moment, and I should think it would be extremely helpful, if not to the owners, at least to the manufacturers, to know whether the cabs they are producing at the moment are of a type that will be covered by these Regulations, or whether their manufacturing runs will have to be scrapped. Regulation 4 says that each cab must have the number of the tractor to which it belongs. I wonder what happens if a farmer changes his tractor. Can he remove the cab and place it on to a new one? If so, what happens about the number of the cab?—because the number which appears on the cab refers to the tractor from which it has been removed. If the number may be changed, who changes it? Is it the farmer or the dealer? What safeguards are there to prevent any form of malpractice in this way?

One of the drawbacks with tractors, as the noble Lord said, is their high centre of gravity, and I agree that, although a cab would increase the centre of gravity, it may not increase it very much. In any event, it is going to be difficult to decrease the centre of gravity, when this is dependent so much on the rear driving wheels, which tend to get larger.

I would draw attention to two further points in connection with the safety of these implements, which might be considered for the future. One is the length of the drawbar behind the back axle. The further the drawbar goes to the rear of the back axle, the more this acts as a lever whenever the weight is placed upon it. The second frequent cause of the overturning of tractors occurs when well-meaning farmers try to remove a tree stump, and attach a rope between the tractor and the tree stump. Provided the wheels turn, either the tractor goes forward and the stump comes out, or the tractor remains in the same position and merely up-ends itself. Both these points, I should have thought, are worthy of consideration for the future.

I do not know how much these cabs will cost, but at the moment a cab—and this is not a safety cab—may cost anything up to £80. Let us assume that there would be a reasonable run—indeed there would be a reasonable run—of cabs and the price was reduced to £60 per cab. If there are 40,000 tractors purchased per year, we are in fact talking of a sum of £2¼ million under these Regulations. This is the sum that is going to be required annually to be spent by farmers on safety cabs. One cannot help wondering where this money will come from. Will it come directly out of the pockets of the farmers; or will it be taken into account in the Price Review; or how is it to be financed? Indeed, is this the best way of spending this sum of £2¼ million in order to save deaths?

I would comment on only two other points on these Regulations which seem to me quite remarkable. One is that it is said that you need not use a cab if you are involved in a building. This, of course, is perfectly understandable. What happens when a farmer decides to clean out his cowshed or piggery or poultry house, which involves taking his tractor frequently into the building, filling up his trailer, and going out of the building, attaching the tractor to the trailer, and taking it to the field? Under these Regulations, as I understand them, once he has filled up his trailer he must then go out with his tractor, put a cab upon it, drive off to the field, empty his load of muck, come back to the building and remove the cab before entering the building. This is a complete illogicality. I am not sure whether it is actually intended by the Regulations, but as I see it, if a farmer goes to the field with the muck without a cab on the tractor he will be infringing the Regulations. What does the noble Lord propose to do about that?

Lastly, if these Regulations are sound for agriculture, it seems extraordinary that they should refer only to people who are employed in agriculture and that there is no obligation upon the farmer, when he is driving a tractor, to be covered with a cab. In other words, he must see that his employees are covered with a safety cab, but he may take the same tractor and do precisely the same work and need not be covered by a safety cab. If there is any value in these Regulations, I respectfully suggest that they should refer to the farmer as well as to his employees.

11.51 a.m.

LORD CHAMPION

My Lords, I join with the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, in welcoming these Regulations. He has asked a number of pertinent questions, the answers to which will be extremely interesting. I have watched this problem for some little time as a result of my short association with the Department. I am not at all happy about the fact that it seems that such a long time will elapse before these Regulations really begin to "bite". This worries me very much because of the number of deaths involved. In Wales, where I live, many of these accidents occur on hillsides, where farm tractors without cabs ought not to be used at all in any circumstances from this moment on. Indeed, they ought not to have been used heretofore without some considerable safety device such as is projected here.

I do not like the date of 1977. It seems such a long way off and I should have thought the whole process could have been squeezed up so that we could avoid these frightening casualties, the figures of which my noble friend has given to the House. Having expressed my doubts and worries about the length of time before these Regulations really begin to operate, I am bound to say that I welcome them as a considerable step forward in the interests of the safety of workers in this great industry.

LORD WALSTON

My Lords, if I may reply to the questions put to me by the noble Lords who have spoken, I should like to deal first with the point made by my noble friend Lord Champion when he suggested that the delay was too long. As I said in my opening remarks, one has to hold the balance between bringing this in rapidly, and therefore making certain obsolescent tractors more rapidly obsolete, or involving the farmers in a certain amount of expense for a tractor which is not going to be used very much. We have been pressed, on the one hand, as my noble friend has done, to do this more rapidly, and, on the other hand, to give a rather longer transitional period.

As I have said, I feel that the three-year period for new tractors and the seven-year period thereafter is the right balance. I would point out that it is not a question of waiting for ten years until anything is done. Every new tractor sold after 1970 will have to be so equipped, so that there will be an increasing proportion of tractors which are properly equipped from 1970 onwards, and indeed I hope rather sooner than that, because I am sure that some farmers will take advantage of safety cabs and frames sooner than that date.

The noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, asked a large number of pertinent questions, which I will try to answer briefly. He pointed out that cabs limit visibility. That is true, but I would remind him that although this Order is called the Agriculture (Tractor Cabs) Regulations, it applies in fact to frames as well as cabs. The title is a form of shorthand, simply using "cabs" instead of "cabs and frames". It will be quite permissible for those farmers who do not wish to have the entire closed cab simply to have a safety frame, which will not in any way impede visibility. Advice to manufacturers will be available from now on as to the standards, and they will be working in close collaboration with the British Standards Institution so that they can start manufacture immediately.

With regard to the number that is to be put both on the cab and on the tractor, one has only to put on the serial number of the cab so that it may be checked with the design, and so on. The names and the makes for which its use is permitted must also be put there. If a cab is subsequently approved for another make it may be used, even if the name of the tractor is not on it. In other words, it is not the registration number of the tractor which has to be put on but the serial number of the cab, and each cab or frame will be approved for one or more types of tractor.

EARL FERRERS

My Lords, may I interrupt the noble Lord? I should like to point out that it says in the Regulations, under 4(a)(iii): marked with supplementary marks which include the name of the make, and the name or number of the model, of that tractor". I thought that referred to the registration number.

LORD WALSTON

No, my Lords; it is the model of the tractor. For instance, it may be approved for a Fordson 5,000, and it has to be shown that it is approved for that type of tractor. It may subsequently be approved for a Massey-Ferguson 375; that can then be put on and it can be used for that type also. The length of drawbar, which was mentioned by the noble Earl, is a very important point. It is one of which the manufacturers of tractors are well aware, and I am sure they take it very much into consideration in their designs.

With regard to the cost of fitting safety cabs, which the noble Earl worked out at £2¼ million or thereabouts, on the face of it that figure may appear to be a fair one, but I would suggest to the noble Earl that in fact very many tractor users, as he has said, already use cabs of one kind or another, and I think the chances are that by 1970 the vast majority of tractors on farms will be fitted with cabs. There will be some slight extra cost for the safety frame or cab, but it will not be anything in the order of £60 or £70 over and above the cost of the normal cab. Therefore, I think the actual figure will be very much smaller than that mentioned by the noble Earl.

As to how that amount will be paid, as the noble Earl knows in the Annual Price Review all relevant costs are taken into consideration, and if it is maintained and upheld that it is relevant that the cost of machinery has increased, for this or any other cause, naturally that will be taken into consideration in the Price Review, not specifically, but in the general overall picture. The noble Earl also asked whether this was the best way of spending this amount of money. In view of the fact that tractor deaths are possibly rising and not falling, and have reached the figure of one every week, and are far and away the biggest single cause of deaths on farms, I believe it is the best way of spending the money.

The noble Earl raised another difficult point, I admit: that of cleaning out yards and going to and from work. I am afraid that it would vitiate a very large part of these Regulations if one could say that in such circumstances exemption would be given and a farmer could go out or allow his tractor to go out from the yard. Of course, it does not apply to the farmer himself. He may wish to drive the tractor himself and take his own risks, but I will come to that in a moment. It may be that there are two tractors on the farm, one can be used inside and one outside and so on. It is a real problem but one where, if we were to make exemptions here, I think we should get into trouble with my noble friend Lord Champion for whittling away an Order which, in his opinion and that of many people, is already somewhat overdue.

The final point concerned the farmer as opposed to the worker: why this applies only to the employees and not to the farmer himself. The Act under which this Regulation is made does not allow us to deal with self-employed persons. Parliament, in its wisdom, decided that this general Act was for the safety of employees and not employers, and so we should be completely out of order if the Regulations were extended to cover the farmer himself, a self-employed man. I am grateful to noble Lords who have contributed to this debate. I think their views have been extremely valuable. I am also grateful for the support they have given to these Regulations.

On Question, Motion agreed to.