MINES MANAGEMENT BILL [H.L.] (Hansard, 3 November 1970)

§ LORD DRUMALBYN
My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. Your Lordships will of course recognise it as one we considered and passed during the last Parliament— although I am bound to say that the attendance of your Lordships to-day is very much greater than it was on that occasion. It was then welcomed by both sides of your Lordships' House and was given a very speedy passage. Perhaps I may remind your Lordships that on that occasion I said: … this was an exceptionally well drafted and clear Bill. Its purpose was clear; its purposes commended themselves to the House. …"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 30/4/70, col. 1114.] On that occasion I was speaking from the Benches opposite and the noble Lord, Lord Delacourt-Smith, was in my place here. But this change of position has not made me, or the Government, change our view of the Bill. We examined the earlier Bill carefully and have needed to make only one small change in it. To save your Lordships the task of comparing the two versions to identify the change, I will revert to it in a few minutes.
291 The purposes of the Bill are quite clear. For more than a century there has been legislation in this country dealing with the safety, health and welfare of mineworkers. This has been reviewed from time to time—either following disasters or because the Government of the day considered that a review was needed for other reasons. The last general review was made by the Royal Commission under the chairmanship of Lord Rockley which reported in 1938. The Report of that Commission resulted in the Mines and Quarries Act 1954, which is the governing Act in this field. The tragic disaster at Aberfan four years ago, which the Tribunal under Sir Herbert Edmund Davies investigated, led to the Mines and Quarries (Tips) Act 1969. These two Acts, generally speaking, lay down broad principles—the ends to be achieved. Detailed provisions laying down how these ends are to be achieved are contained in regulations made as Statutory Instruments.
One essential feature in this code of mining law is that responsibilities are firmly placed on persons who can clearly be identified. At a mine, prime responsibility rests on the manager who is automatically guilty of an offence if there is any contravention of provisions of the Acts or regulations (except where the duty is expressly laid on some other person). The 1954 Act allows for the appointment of one or more under-managers and, indeed, requires one to be appointed in certain circumstances; as the law now stands an under-manager's responsibilities may be limited to part of a mine, and if a contravention takes place in a part which is within his jurisdiction he too is automatically guilty of an offence.
These provisions were reasonable and acceptable when the 1954 Act was drafted. But since that time there have been big changes in the coal mining industry. At that time the National Coal Board was organised in five tiers; now there are three. There are far fewer collieries, but their average output is very much greater. Mechanisation has made tremendous strides. In 1958 only 28 per cent. of coal output came from mechanised faces. In 1968–69 the percentage had risen to 93 per cent. Consequently the industry is much more capital-intensive. A single face may 292 represent an investment of a quarter of a million pounds. To be operated economically, it has to be worked on two or three shifts each day instead of the single coal turning shift which used to be normal. In 1958 there were nine coal faces at which three shifts were being worked. In 1968–69 there were 315.
I should like to explain to your Lordships why it is difficult to cope with these changes satisfactorily with the law as it stands at present. First, the law does not recognise, and so does not place statutory responsibilities on, any official who might be interposed between the manager and the under-managers to assist the manager in carrying out his duties. In the mining industry statutory recognition and statutory responsibility march hand in hand with authority; without statutory recognition and statutory responsibility it is difficult to exercise authority. This is quite understandable. Where the law requires an under-manager to "carry the can", he may well be diffident about taking instructions from a senior who has no such legal hardware to handle. We propose to put this right by providing in Clause 1 that a senior employee who is instructed in writing to assist in the discharge of a manager's statutory functions shall have the same responsibility before the law, in relation to those functions, as the manager himself.
The second snag concerns under-managers. Under the 1954 Act an under-manager's responsibilities may be limited to part only of a mine. But within that part he is responsible for 24 hours a day and seven days a week. Clearly, it would be indefensible to continue to hold him statutorily responsible all the time if another under-manager has charge of the same part of the mine but on a different shift. Clause 2 gets over this by providing him with a defence if there is a contravention of the Act or regulations at a time when he is off duty and the contravention is not due to any act or omission on his part.
I have explained the difficulties and how it is proposed to overcome them. Now a word about safeguards. The Bill is designed to ensure that an assistant is neither given nor accepts duties which he is not qualified to perform. It may 293 be convenient to your Lordships if I refer at this stage to the one change we have made in the Bill. The previous Bill made it an offence for an assistant to act on instructions given to him by the manager if he knew that he was "not capable of having any statutory responsibility" because he did not hold qualifications specified for the particular purpose of those instructions. These words "not capable of having any responsibility" appeared in Clause 1(b). We now consider them to be too wide because although a man might not hold those particular qualifications required for certain duties, he might well be qualified for statutory responsibility in another capacity. We have therefore changed the words to read: … not capable of having a statutory responsibility of the manager … I should perhaps also add that a minor amendment will be required to the Bill because of a change in the organisation of Government since the Bill was printed.
This Bill is short, but important. It will assist the coal mining industry to adapt its management structure to modern conditions and to the technological revolution which has taken place. The provisions of the Bill will ensure that the industry is not hampered by legislative requirements that have become outdated in some respects. I readily acknowledge that the credit for the Bill belongs to the previous Administration. Because we recognise its merits, we have taken an early opportunity to introduce it anew to your Lordships' House. I beg to move.

§ LORD DELACOURT-SMITH
My Lords, as the noble Lord indicated, he and I have been here before, and I must congratulate him on his greater drawirg power, as is evident from the larger attendance in your Lordships' House, than when I had the privilege of commending a virtually identical Bill to your Lordships some six months ago. I am bound to observe that I trust that the noble Lord is here setting a precedent in respect of the coal industry and that before very long we shall have the opportunity of hearing him introduce a Coal Industry Bill which will follow as closely 294 as the present Bill the intentions of the previous Government.
My Lords, in the circumstances it is clear that we on this side of the House give a warm welcome and shall give a very favourable passage to this Bill. I do not think that the amendment which has been made is likely to cause us materially to modify our opinion of it. As the noble Lord has explained, it is a Bill which is necessitated by the changing economic and technological character of the mining industry and it is, of course, a Bill of which the theme and the purpose is the further improvement of mine safety. In this regard it is gratifying to be able to say that the latest Report of the National Coal Board, which contains the figures of casualties for the year 1969–70, marks a continuance of the favourable trend beyond the figures for the calendar year 1969 which were the latest then available to me when I commended this Bill to your Lordships in April.
It is perhaps noteworthy also that the National Coal Board Report draws attention in this regard to growing concern at the number of accidents that occur either on the surface or on the haulage and transport systems underground. I am sure that that situation is attracting and engaging the attention of all those who had any degree of responsibility for it. I think it would not be appropriate for this Bill to pass through your Lordships' House without paying tribute to the concern which has been shown with all aspects of mine safety by the National Coal Board and the National Union of Mineworkers and other appropriate trade unions; and I wish in particular to pay a tribute to the work and the activities and the standards set over a very long period of time by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Mines. My Lords, I join with the noble Lord in commending this Bill to your Lordships.

§ LORD ARWYN
My Lords, I have not put my name down to speak, but I think I am probably one of the few mine managers, if not the only one, at present in your Lordships' House, and I should like to congratulate the Government on carrying out the work which our Party started, and realising the stress which a mine manager has. Only people who have experienced this stress can possibly 295 know what it means. The telephone can ring at any time of the day or night—at night by one's bedside, and it can be a terrifying experience. Until now it has been legally impossible to hand over adequate responsibility to anybody. I confess that I am speaking with emotion because I have myself suffered these things, and I congratulate the Government on reintroducing this Bill.

§ LORD DRUMALBYN
My Lords, may I just thank the two noble Lords who have spoken for the welcome they have given to this Bill, as well they might. I realise it is purely fortuitous that there are a larger number of your Lordships here than on the previous occasion because we are, quite rightly, taking this Bill at an early stage.
May I now refer to the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Delacourt-Smith, about the Coal Industry Bill? As he will doubtless recall, my honourable friend the Lord President announced in the House of Commons on July 16 that the Government will introduce a Bill this Session to lessen the effects on the mining community of the contraction in the coal industry after the existing powers expire in March of next year, and that Bill will be published in the near future.
I should like to join in what has been said about mine safety. There has been a dramatic fall in casualties and this, as the noble Lord said, marks not only the concern but the success of all those who have had anything to do with this subject. I would also join with him in the tribute that he paid to the inspectors in this regard, but I would also say that the real effort and responsibility for the reduction of casualties lies with those who manage and work in the mines, and I think this improvement is a signal tribute to all of them.
As to the remarks made by the noble Lord about the risk of accidents on the surface and the haulage and transport systems underground, I am sure that careful note will be taken of them, and I hope that the same success will attend the efforts to deal with this problem as with other problems, such as pneumoconiosis and the like. Again, I thank the House for the way in which it has received this Bill.