Lords Sitting of 27 June 1974

Preamble
The House met at three of the clock: The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Saint Edmundsbury and Ipswich.

OPEC AND INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND
THE EARL OF LAUDERDALE: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the first Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what is their policy on suggestions that it would be in the interest of industrial countries which are heavy importers of crude oil to secure larger representation of the OPEC countries on the Council of the International Monetary Fund.
THE LORD JACQUES: My Lords, Her Majesty's Government welcome full and active participation of all member countries in the important work of the International Monetary Fund. It would certainly be appropriate for the growing importance of the Oil Producing and Exporting Countries in international financial affairs to be reflected in their position in the International Monetary Fund.
Subject to a moderate weighting in favour of small member countries, voting rights in the I.M.F. are based upon quotas. These also determine subscriptions and drawing rights. Quotas are a matter for periodic negotiation. A renegotiation has begun and is due to be completed by February, 1975. It is to be expected, unless the OPEC countries themselves wish otherwise, that their relative position will be increased as a result of this round of renegotiation.
THE EARL OF LAUDERDALE: My Lords, in thanking the noble Lord for his informative and valuable reply, may I ask him to clarify one or two points? Can we take it that Her Majesty's Government are in favour of this general approach, inasmuch as the delays in the production of North Sea oil will make
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it important to be able to buy Middle Eastern crude? Do the Government realise that it is important to persuade the OPEC countries to be willing to accept Special Drawing Rights?
LORD JACQUES: My Lords, on earlier occasions not all OPEC countries have claimed as much as they might have been entitled to claim by way of quotas. Her Majesty's Government would welcome their full participation.
THE EARL OF LAUDERDALE: My Lords, may I thank the noble Lord for that answer to my supplementary question. It is satisfactory to me.

SCOTLAND: PLATFORM CONSTRUCTION SITES
3.8 p.m.
THE EARL OF LAUDERDALE: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the second Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government when the Scottish Development Department intends to publish the comprehensive list (which has been expected since the limited list published last September) of physically possible sites around the Highlands and Islands coasts for the construction of gravity platforms.
THE MINISTER OF STATE, SCOTTISH OFFICE (LORD HUGHES): My Lords, as the noble Earl knows, the Scottish Office has published two discussion papers dealing with platform construction sites. The first, Production Platform Towers: Construction Sites, dated April, 1973, included a list of possible locations for platform tower construction yards. The other was North Sea Oil and Gas: Interim Coastal Planning Framework, dated October, 1973. It is hoped to publish a revised version of this during the summer, indicating suggested zones around the Scottish coast in which conservation and development might, respectively, have priority. It is also hoped to publish a statement on the national requirements for platform construction sites.
THE EARL OF LAUDERDALE: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that

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reply. May I also thank him for a letter which he was good enough to write to me on this subject a few weeks back, and ask whether the further document which is envisaged will cover possible sites in the Islands?
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, in so far as the Islands also have Scottish coasts, yes.
THE EARL OF LAUDERDALE: My Lords, it is very satisfactory that the Hebrides and the Western Isles will be included in this study. However, may I ask the noble Lord whether the study will also take account of the depths needed for towing gravity platforms out to the sites where they will eventually stand, and of channel depths, as well as of the inshore qualifications of particular sites for construction?
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, I can assure the noble Earl that the study will take account of all relevant factors.

MOTORWAY SERVICE STATIONS
LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government to state what is the system of inspection of motorway service and refreshment stations, the frequency of reports, and whether they are published.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, there are frequent inspections of catering facilities by all local authority public health inspectors. Officials of the Department of the Environment inspect service areas, including catering facilities, at least four times a year. Inspection reports are not published.
LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD: My Lords, while thanking the noble Lord for that information, may I ask whether he is aware that these service stations sometimes fall conspicuously below the standard that we should like to see achieved; and that when they do so it is not only uncomfortable and disappointing for those wishing to use them, both for refreshment for themselves and their motor cars, but is also very bad for the
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tourist trade? Is the noble Lord aware that it appears that some tightening up of the inspection system seems to he required? Also is he aware that a system of publishing reports might be stimulating to licence holders?
LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, we are aware that there are periods when the standard of service falls short of what we are confident the operators would like it to be. The House ought to know that the service stations are open 24 hours a day, and there are periods when they are under heavy pressure. With regard to tightening-up inspections, I will draw the attention of the Department to what the noble Lord has said, but I should like to add that a recent survey showed that the vast majority of people who use service stations appear to be satisfied with the standard of service.
LORD POPPLEWELL: My Lords, will the noble Lord agree that local authority inspectors' reports on service stations can vary considerably, area by area, according to the interpretation that is placed by the local medical officer of health on an inspector's report. In view of the importance of these motorway service stations to our tourist traffic, is it possible for a code to be established, giving guidance to local authorities on the standard which they should expect at each of these important stations?
LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, I am very much aware of the first point that my noble friend has made and, indeed, I have personally drawn the attention of the Department to the variation. I will draw the attention of my right honourable friend to the second part of my noble friend's remarks.
LORD HAILSHAM OF SAINT MARYLEBONE: My Lords, as well as drawing the attention of his right honourable friend to the matter, will the noble Lord, when he goes on his holiday—which I hope he will very greatly enjoy—visit some of these stations himself? He will undoubtedly find that many of them are very nasty and smelly.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, I have visited them when I have been travelling North. But I have not had the pleasure of being in a service station when the noble and learned Lord opposite has also been there.
LORD PEDDIE: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that, while some of these refreshment stations are appallingly bad, some are quite good? Will the noble Lord agree that the publication of reports indicating comparative standards would be in the public interest, and would at least make some contribution towards raising the standards of those that I have already described as being appallingly had, bringing them up to the standard of those that are quite good?
LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, I will draw the attention of my right honourable friend to what my noble friend has said.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: My Lords, will the noble Lord agree that most of the motorway service station areas are operated on a rental and royalty basis, and is there any opportunity during the term of a contract for such a basis to be renegotiated in the light of financial circumstances?
LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, I rather think not.
LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that the basic point here is that these stations have within their area a monopoly interest, and, therefore, it is the responsibility of the Government and of the local authorities to protect the public to see that a proper standard is observed? While I sympathise with his defence of the position, is the noble Lord aware that improvements can be achieved and that those of us who travel abroad in Europe have seen such improvements achieved in other countries; notably in Italy, where the service stations have gone from being very bad to very good? Will the noble Lord therefore exert his utmost influence to see that a real improvement is achieved in this area?
LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, I certainly appreciate what the noble Lord has said, and indeed I myself have been making much the same representations. However, I have to remind the House that these service stations are operated privately and that the operators expect to make a profit. Indeed, if they did not make a profit it would be impossible to supply any facilities at all.
LORD BLYTON: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware of the high prices
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charged in these service stations? Is he also aware that the disease now seems to have spread to the Lords' Dining Room?
LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, I am acutely aware of the latter point made by my noble friend.
LORD SLATER: My Lords, will my noble friend agree, in view of the great interest that has been shown in this Question, that the inspectorate to which he referred is inadequate to meet the situation and ought to be increased?
LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, I can certainly say that this matter will be looked at.

NATIONALISED INDUSTRY ADVERTISEMENTS
3.18 p.m.
BARONESS BURTON OF COVENTRY: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether, when a nationalised industry advertises and sells goods by holding out promises which receive publicity but are not kept, such a breach of good faith is subject to prosecution under the variety of consumer protection measures now in existence; and what action should be taken by aggrieved consumers.
TILE MINISTER OF STATE, DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY (LORD BALOGH): My Lords, nationalised industries are, like other commercial enterprises, subject to a wide range of consumer protection measures. Aggrieved consumers can take up complaints with the consumer councils for the industries, or initiate legal proceedings if they wish. If by any chance my noble friend has in mind the question of off-peak electricity tariffs, I would refer her to the answer given by my noble friend Lady Birk on June 17, the Statement in another place by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Energy on June 20, and my own Answer to her Question on June 25.
BARONESS BURTON OF COVENTRY: My Lords, while being grateful for a

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much longer Answer this time than I received before, I wonder whether I might ask my noble friend, in also referring him to the Answer which my noble friend Lady Birk gave me on June 17, whether we were told that the Director General of Fair Trading could himself have made a reference on this matter to the Consumer Protection Advisory Committee if he had been asked by the Minister to do so, and that alternatively the Minister himself could have asked for a report?
Secondly, does my noble friend recall that I was also told that the Consultative Councils on this occasion made no complaint and had nothing to say about this particular advertisement and this particular matter, and therefore it would not have been the slightest use appealing to them?
LORD BALOGH: My Lords, as to the first supplementary question of my noble friend Lady Burton of Coventry, I would say that the Council's advertisements were fully justified when they were made. They gave no guarantee that the situation would never change. As to the Consumer Council, it seems to me that if any complaints had been received, they would have been transmitted. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Energy announced in another place on June 20 that he had asked the Chairman of the Electricity Council to examine urgently the giving of relief to domestic off-peak users. He said his aim would be to restore the differential so that the charge per unit for off-peak electricity would once again be a 50 per cent. charge per unit. I hope my noble friend will wait for the next Statement of my right honour. able friend the Secretary of State on this matter.
BARONESS BURTON OF COVENTRY: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that reply. As he knows, I am awaiting a letter from him on that matter, which I hope will arrive fairly soon. But may I just make this point which is really a serious one so far as the consumers are concerned. Does the noble Lord realise that the public thinks that a promise was made of a half-price charge for electricity? This is not a question of merits, but a promise was made. Does the noble Lord further realise that the Minister himself now thinks this, because he has
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said his aim will be to restore the 50 per cent. charge? It is this matter which is concerning us all.
LORD BALOGH: My Lords, I do not think that the industry has ever made a promise that there will be no change in the relationship between the full tariff and the off-peak tariff. If my noble friend would give me some examples, I can assure her we shall investigate them. But so long as the present situation exists I do beg her to await the next Statement of the Secretary of State.
LORD MAYBRAY-KING: My Lords, in view of the representations made from all sides of the House on the question of night storage heaters, will the noble Lord accept and convey to the Government our congratulations that they have accepted the old principle of the 50 per cent. rate?
LORD BALOGH: My Lords, I shall certainly convey those sentiments to my right honourable friend.
LORD INGLEWOOD: My Lords, may I ask whether the first Answer of the noble Lord applies also to nationalised industries selling services, such as the Post Office, whose advertising with regard to the delivery of mail is very far from being fulfilled?
LORD BALOGH: My Lords, I should have thought that that is rather wide of the Question. If the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, puts down a Question relating to the Post Office, I hope someone will answer it.
LORD PEDDIE: My Lords, arising out of my noble friend's reference to previous Questions on this subject, may I ask him once again the question I put on a previous occasion, as to whether or not a service has been provided on a contractual basis to the user? If that be not so, may I further ask him whether or not there has been any consideration given to the adoption of such services on a contractual basis?
LORD BALOGH: My Lords, I do not think there was any contract on the 50 per cent. charge, but I shall call the attention of my right honourable friend to what the noble Lord, Lord Peddie, has said. We will answer him in writing.

FLIXBOROUGH DISASTER: PUBLIC INQUIRY
LORD STRABOLGI: My Lords, with the leave of the House my noble friend Lord Hughes will be making a Statement on Flixborough at a convenient moment after 3.30 p.m.

FRIENDLY SOCIETIES BILL [H.L.]
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD ELWYN-JONES): My Lords, I beg leave to introduce a Bill to consolidate the Friendly Societies Acts 1896 to 1971 and certain other enactments relating to the societies to which those Acts apply with amendments to give effect to recommendations of the Law Commission and the Scottish Law Commission. I beg to move that this Bill be read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 1a. —(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Bill read 1a. and to be printed.

ANIMAL BOARDING ESTABLISHMENTS (AMENDMENT) BILL [H.L.]
LORD DE CLIFFORD: My Lords, I beg leave to introduce a Bill to amend the Animal Boarding Establishments Act, 1963. I beg to move that this Bill be read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 1a.—(Lord de Clifford.)
On Question, Bill read 1a. and to be printed.

MINISTERS OF THE CROWN BILL
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (LORD SHEPHERD): My Lords, I understand that no Amendments have been set down to this Bill and that no noble Lord has indicated a wish to move a manuscript Amendment or to speak in Committee. Therefore, unless any noble Lord objects, I beg to move, pursuant to Standing Order No. 45(2), that the Order of Commitment be discharged.
Moved, That the Order of Commitment be discharged. —(Lord Shepherd.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
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Then, Standing Order No. 44 having been suspended (pursuant to Resolution), Bill read 3a, and passed.

HEALTH AND SAFETY AT WORK ETC. BILL
3.26 p.m.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. Almost 18 months ago to the day, this House debated the Report of the Committe of Inquiry into Safety and Health at Work—the Committee which was so ably chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Robens of Woldingham. That very full, informed and constructive debate was, I believe, a significant contribution to the process of extensive consultation and discussion that has accompanied the preparation of the Bill which is now before us. The message of our debate was clear. The noble Lord, Lord Robens, and his Committee had done an excellent job in analysing the weaknesses of our present legislative and organisational arrangements for controlling safety and health hazards in industry; and the Committee's recommendations for improvements, far-reaching and comprehensive as they were, provided the essential basis for new legislation. The Government, in effect, were told to get on with the job quickly.
Of course a Bill of this size and importance takes time to produce. Nevertheless, it is still solidly based on the Committee's recommendations. There has been no dilution; and I think it is fair to say that the very extensive consultations with both sides of industry, local authority associations, professional organisations and so on, that took place on the Robens Report, and then on the consultative proposals for this Bill have increased both knowledge and understanding of the whole subject. The strengthening process has been continued in another place, where the Bill has been considered with speed, but none the less with deep thought, much constructive comment, and a very large degree of unanimity. I am sure that this House also will welcome it, and will want to expedite its passage.
It can very aptly be described as an historic measure, because it is, after all, the culmination of over a century and a half of health and safety legislation. The

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first Factories Act of 1833, which set out to do something about the appalling working conditions created by the Industrial Revolution, was followed by a whole series of such Acts, each one broader in scope than its predecessors. At the same time, the general principle of regulating working conditions, accepted at first with great reluctance by a laissez-faire society, was gradually extended to other sectors of employment—to mines and quarries, to agriculture, and, as recently as 1963, to offices, shops and railway premises. Other Acts set out to control specific sources of major hazards which affect workpeople and the public; such as explosives, petroleum, alkali works and nuclear installations. Increasingly we have learned that the operations of industry are a matter of vital concern to the whole community, not just in the economic sense, but in terms of effects upon our quality of life.
Another lesson learned early in this process was that, without a system of enforcement, legislation of this nature was unlikely to be effective. So with these various Acts came the development of the various inspectorates—the Factory Inspectorate, the Mines and Quarries Inspectorate, the Explosives Inspectorate and so on. Their development is an important part of our social history. We have now come a very long way since the appointment of the first four factory inspectors in 1833. Much has been achieved by a century and a half of legislation for safety and health at work, but much more needs to be done. The figures speak for themselves. Something like 1,000 people are killed every year at work. Half a million suffer accidents. Around 20 million working days are lost annually through occupational accidents and diseases. Every year brings its own crop of disasters, some large some small, often affecting members of the public as well as work-people. Aberfan, Dudgeons Wharf, Lodden Bridge, Lofthouse Colliery, and now Flixborough—one could go on for a long time indeed with the melancholy roll call.
We have now before us a Bill whose purposes are to build on the achievements of the past, and to provide for continuing improvements in standards of health, safety and welfare, to keep in sten with developments in industry and in public
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expectations. As the Robens Committee pointed out so vividly, the process of making health and safety legislation over the past century and a half, in piecemeal fashion to deal with specific problems, has resulted in a corpus of law which contains many anomalies and leaves many gaps in cover. Parliament can but rarely find the time for new measures to keep up with the ever-changing technologies of industrial processes and the health and safety problems which they create.
This Bill is, therefore, primarily an enabling measure. It provides powers to devise new controls for new problems as and when they occur. It provides for the establishment of a new organisation, whose sole concern will be the promotion of health and safety, and gives it responsibility for ensuring that the powers to impose controls are fully used and that such controls are effectively exercised. It also does all that legislation can do to stimulate forward thinking, the taking of measures to prevent problems arising, rather than to control them when they do.
The purposes of the Bill are set out in the first clause. The objectives are simple but all-embracing—to secure the health, safety and welfare of all persons at work, and to protect the public from risks to their health and safety arising from work activities. The means of achieving the objectives are also set out in Clause 1. The enabling powers in the Bill are to be used with a view to revising and replacing the existing piecemeal legislation—out-of-date and often limited in application as much of it is—by an integrated and comprehensive system of up-to-date provisions. This system of new provisions is to be designed to maintain or improve the standards of health, safety and welfare laid down in the existing legislation.
There have been voices raised, in another place as well as in some quarters outside Parliament, querying the reliability of these stated purposes. These critics of the Bill have wondered whether, in the process of revising and replacing existing legislation, standards of protection may, in fact, be lowered, specifics may be lost in generalities, and so on. I suspect that part of the trouble is that because it is an enabling Bill this Bill has an unfamiliar appearance by comparison with other health and safety

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legislation. It imposes only requirements of a very general nature. It does not itself seek to regulate known and specific hazards in detail. But, as I shall try to make clear, this does not for one moment mean that those hazards will not henceforward be controlled, and in the most stringent way. We must have the imagination to look to the potential which the Bill's provisions contain. In particular, we must look to the effects of the Bill upon those most directly involved in securing health and safety, the two sides of industry.
First, the new organisation which will be set up to take responsibility for health and safety matters will have a membership largely drawn from the two sides of industry. They will take responsibility for putting forward proposals to Ministers for the new regulations which will control the activities of industry in the interests of health and safety; and they will have a direct say in the way in which all existing and future requirements are carried into effect on a day-to-day basis.
Secondly, and most importantly, the Bill provides for rights to be given to trade unions to appoint safety representatives who in turn may call for the setting up of a safety committee at their workplace, where management and employee representatives may co-operate in devising new policies for health and safety and in ensuring that they are followed up. This responsibility for taking initiatives to secure workpeople's safety can be squarely placed on the representatives of these workpeople, quite apart from and in addition to the responsibility on management to comply with the law. Thirdly, the Bill provides extensive powers and duties regarding the free flow and full availability of advice and information on health and safety matters. This is an essential counterpart of regulation and enforcement, a vital means towards increasing awareness of the problems involved. The availability of information and advice as part of the process of educating people to a greater awareness of health and safety problems will be as important in the future in improving health and safety standards as legislative controls.
Fourthly, in considering how the powers in the Bill will ensure that its purposes are achieved and that standards of health and safety are progressively improved, we
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must look at the power to make health and safety regulations. This is an extremely comprehensive power; regulations may be made for any of the general purposes stated in Clause 1 of the Bill. The power extends to everything from the licensing, design, siting and operation of plants which pose major industrial hazards, such as nuclear installations, or chemical plants of the kind established at Flixborough, to the number of windows in a secretary's office. I have no doubt that it is comprehensive enough to deal with the problems raised by future technologies that we have not yet dreamt about.
But I should emphasise that it is not a power which can be exercised without responsibility. Proposals for regulations will normally be put forward to Ministers by the new Commission, which will have at its disposal the best expert resources available. That Commission will be accountable to Ministers and Parliament for the way in which it fulfils its duty of reviewing the needs for more legislation and of bringing forward proposals. Before it puts forward its proposals, it is required by the Bill to consult interested bodies so as to ensure that what it is proposing is workable and effective. And, of course, the regulations will actually be made by Ministers who will be accountable to Parliament for their adequacy. I hope that what I have said makes clear that this Bill is not just a statement of laudable purposes, but that it makes concrete and powerful provision for achieving those purposes.
May I describe a little more comprehensively its main provisions. First, the Bill is entirely comprehensive in its scope and application. It applies for the control of operations of all industry. Requirements may be imposed on anyone who carries on an undertaking or anyone who works in one. Protection may be extended to such people and, at one and the same time, to members of the public who may be affected by the way in which industrial operations are carried on. Thus, for the first time some 5 million workpeople who have been without Statutory protection will come under the Bill. Moreover, and very importantly, the closely-related questions of public health and safety as affected by industry and workpeople's health and safety may be dealt with as part of one comprehensive approach. The

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gaps and loopholes in existing legislation are eliminated.
Next, the Bill provides for the establishment of a Health and Safety Commission to administer the legislation in place of the present fragmented arrangements, so rightly and cogently criticised by the Robens Committee, whereby a number of Government Departments do this work. This unification of administration will create a single and major centre of initiative for progress in this field. Health and safety at work will cease to be a poor relation, diffused between different Departments. It will become a subject in its own right, attracting the priority it deserves. The membership of the Health and Safety Commission will reflect the interests of those most affected by the legislation—employers, trade unions, local authorities and the public at large. Thus those most directly concerned will have a major say in the making and implementation of policies, rules and procedures of national application.
The Bill also provides for the establish. ment of a Health and Safety Executive, as the Commission's operational arm. This will provide advice and services to industry and others, and will be responsible for enforcing the Statutory requirements. It will comprise most of the present central Government inspectorates concerned with regulating work-activities in the interests of health and safety. The Executive will be a highly professional organisation, with a wide range of scientific support facilities. As a further measure of co-ordination, the Employment Medical Advisory Service is to be placed under the wing of the Commission, alongside the other specialist groups within the Executive. This is provided for in Part II of the Bill. It is also intended that the National Radiological Protection Board should be able to put its expertise to use on behalf of the Commission and Executive. The Radiological Protection Act is amended to allow for that.
The Bill also enables local authorities to be given enforcement responsibilities. They will have a most important role in enforcing this legislation in certain fields. They already have substantial enforcement duties under some of the
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existing legislation with which the Bill is concerned, and this will continue under the overall guidance of the Commission. A close partnership between the Commission's Executive and the local authorities is an essential aim of the Bill and of the proposed administrative arrangements. Fire authorities will also be given more responsibilities for general fire precautions, in workplaces as elsewhere, but not under this Bill. The Fire Precautions Act 1971 is amended by the Bill to enable them to take on these additional functions— which is a further step in the direction of rationalising who does what in the health and safety field.
The Bill also provides extensive powers for inspectors of those bodies who will enforce the health and safety requirements. These powers include powers to issue notices containing directions requiring improvements, or ordering operations to cease until serious risks of danger have been overcome. The Bill will also enable the penalties in existing legislation to be raised; and where there are more serious offences against health and safety requirements, the Bill enables enforcing authorities to prosecute in the higher courts where unlimited fines—and in some cases imprisonment—may be imposed.
I have not so far mentioned Part III of the Bill. This covers a different, but associated topic; namely building regulations. It is the responsibility of the Secretaries of State for the Environment and Scotland. For some time it has been evident that there is a need for new powers in order that the system of building control in England and Wales can be modernised and made more comprehensive and efficient. A consultative document, Proposals for a Building Bill, was published by the Department of the Environment in August, 1972. Part III of the Bill gives effect to the majority of the proposals outlined in that. It is essentially a corollary to the main provisions of the Bill since it is concerned primarily with the initial construction of work places and other buildings, while the main provisions in the Bill are directed to the health and safety of work places in use.
But there are two important aspects in which it goes beyond the scope of Parts I and II. First, it applies to all buildings; not only to work places. This is because to have confined the new

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powers to premises covered by the remainder of the Bill would have resulted in two codes of regulations—which would plainly be unworkable. Secondly, it extends the purposes for which building regulations in England and Wales can be made to include not only health and safety and the closely associated areas of welfare and convenience, but the conservation of fuel and power and the prevention of waste, undue consumption, misuse or contamination of water.
There are no radical changes in the present building control system. However, the subject matter about which building regulations may be made is widened and updated and, in particular, no longer excludes (as at present) electrical services and equipment. The new provisions mainly consist of enabling powers and the making and amendment of regulations under the new powers will necessarily be spread over some years. Although building legislation, in Scotland is less in need of immediate revision, some amendments to it are made in Part III of the Bill to ensure that broadly similar powers will be available on both sides of the Border. The updating and extension of the building regulations will mean that the Health and Safety Commission and their agents, in dealing with premises with which they are concerned, will, generally speaking, be able to rely upon the building regulation system to look after the health, safety and welfare aspects of the design and construction of buildings and of services, fittings and equipment put into them.
I have left till last the general duties imposed by Clauses 2 to 9 of the Bill—
LORD POPPLEWELL: My Lords, my noble friend has been dealing with the question of what types of industry, factories and buildings will be affected. Before he leaves this point, can he say whether this will also apply to the operational side of transport; such as railways and marshalling yards, and lorries et cetera that are travelling our roads? Will they be within the orbit of this Bill?
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, my noble friend Lady Birk is looking forward, I think with a mixture of trepidation and pleasure, to her first performance in this field and will be replying to the debate. It would be unkind of me to deprive her
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of the opportunity of replying to questions from my noble friend. It also saves me the trouble of taxing my brains.
I was about to say that I have left till last the general duties imposed by Clauses 2 to 9 of the Bill, not because I think them unimportant, but for quite the opposite reason. They are the only substantive health and safety requirements in the Bill itself, and they provide a comprehensive and inescapable safety net for securing improvements in health and safety standards. For all their breadth, these are criminally enforceable duties, and this is why they are not expressed in absolute terms. More stringent requirements on specific matters can and will be laid down in regulations. But these general duties in the Bill will provide the enforcing authorities, who are concerned to prevent accidents and to achieve remedies for potentially dangerous situations, with firm grounds on which to base demands for remedial action, regardless of whether or not regulations have been made on any particular matter. We should not underestimate the practical relevance of broad duties of this kind in dealing with the enormous variety of circumstances of industry which cannot all be catered for in specific regulations.
These then are the main provisions of the Bill. It may help noble Lords if I also refer very briefly to some of the main points raised and amendments made in another place. First, on the question of availability of information, I have described what the Bill does in that respect, and I should say that the powers and duties which ensure that information can and will flow freely have been very considerably strengthened in another place. A good example of this is Clause 75, which amends the Companies Act to enable us to require information on health and safety matters to be included in directors' reports. This was a new clause inserted in the Bill, to follow up a recommendation of the Robens Committee. It is, I am sure, a most valuable addition.
Secondly, the Bill has been amended to put agriculture on the same footing as any other industry, while at the same time ensuring that the Commission will be able to utilise the inspectorial and other resources of the Agricultural Departments for enforcement purposes, by making an

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agency agreement with those Departments. This is an Amendment which must commend itself both in logic and in its practical implications. The essential difference, as compared with the Bill as first published, is that although special arrangements for enforcement in agriculture will be retained, to take account of the peculiar difficulties posed by the structure of the industry, the Commission will no longer be excluded from having responsibility for health and safety in agriculture. Agriculture will thus now have the best of both—worlds it will benefit from both agricultural expertise and health and safety expertise.
Enforcement on farms can be carried out, in the normal course, by inspectors of the Agricultural Departments who are fully familiar with the industry's problems and peculiarities. But, at the same time, the full expertise of the Commission and its Executive on health and safety matters, the full strength of a body solely devoted to health and safety, with all its back-up facilities and its overall responsibility to Ministers for health and safety in all industry, will be brought to bear on health and safety problems in agriculture. Health and safety risks in agriculture are becoming increasingly akin to those in other industries, and it is entirely in keeping that the Commission responsible for health and safety generally should assume responsibility for health and safety in agriculture as for all other industries.
A further matter raised in another place was the problem of mental health in industry; and there was some suggestion that the Bill ignored this problem. It does not. The word "health" is used in the Bill in its broadest sense. It is not particularised—it covers all forms and aspects of damage to health arising from work activities. I think the definition of "personal injury" in Clause 49 makes the point clear. There was also considerable discussion in another place about the question of controlling industrial developments so that the public and community at large are not put at risk. We must all have in mind what happened at Flixborough, and naturally noble Lords, like Members in another place, will want to know what the Bill can do to help minimise the chances of a repetition of that kind of tragedy.
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As I said earlier, the Bill provides powers for licensing installations which present major potential hazards. This means that those who want to carry on particular kinds of operations—whether in existing plants or in new ones—will first have to obtain a licence from the Executive. In the case of new developments, the Executive will be able to get in at the planning and design stage; in the case of existing plants it will be able to impose conditions on operations—and, if necessary, require the cessation of some operations—in the interests of health and safety. Where health and safety licences are required, conditions can be laid down requiring the plant to be set up at a safe distance from any other buildings, and so on. This means that even if a local authority grants planning permission to a firm, if the Executive is not satisfied that the site chosen is safe for all concerned, then it can refuse the firm a licence to operate. But, in any case, the Executive and local authorities will certainly need to develop arrangements for close co-ordination and exchange of information on industrial developments which have the potential for putting in jeopardy the safety of whole communities; and the groundwork for this has already been laid by procedures which have been and are being developed jointly by the Factory Inspectorate and the Department of the Environment.
Finally, the question of joint consultation, and appointment of safety representatives. We in this House have not had as many opportunities to discuss these questions as have Members in another place, and perhaps therefore we may see the provisions of Clause 2 with fresher eyes. We cannot but welcome provisions of this kind which will give rights 10 trade unions to ensure that the voice of workpeople on the shop-floor is heard on the safety and health matters which so directly and urgently affect them. This must be a major step forward, even if it is a step in a slightly different direction from that which some people in another place would wish. In my view these provisions place the responsibilities in the right place—on those who are best organised to make use of them. I hope that the noble Lords will be able, to welcome these provisions for the great step forward that they really are.

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That is a sentiment which, in fact, applies to the Bill as a whole. I hope I have illustrated its breadth and comprehensiveness and made clear its objectives I cannot think that those objectives will be in dispute. I hope and trust that noble Lords will join with me in welcoming this Bill, which provides a charter for renewed progress and continuous improvement in matters which all too rarely get the attention from Parliament that they deserve. I beg to move that the Bill be now read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a—(Lord Hughes.)
3.55 p.m.
THE EARL OF GOWRIE: My Lords, it gives me pleasure and satisfaction to talk from this Box about a Bill which we on this side can support warmheartedly if not 100 per cent. wholeheartedly. Of course the pleasure would have been greater if I had, as I had hoped, been doing the same thing from the Box opposite. I think it would have been one of my tasks. Then, of course, the satisfaction could have reached its century, as we would have been dealing with a Bill good in all aspects, instead of a good Bill which has been defaced just a little: a few warts added here and there, and added, I fear, for cosmetic purposes. But the pleasure, though impaired in these ways, is none the less real, and I have the additional satisfaction of welcoming the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, to the Benches opposite. I have usually only been able to get to this House in the late afternoons, so I am not sure whether the noble Baroness has broken her duck at the Dispatch Box or not but for too long now I have been, in the Opposition Whip's Office, a shadow in search of a substance, and if the substance is to be the noble Baroness, nobody could be more delighted than I am. I have always had great respect for her, and that consoles me a little in my present enforced and ghostly role.
I think the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, was a little wanting in gallantry. I would have been pretty upset if one of my senior Ministers had left me "in the cart" like that; and I am not nearly so pretty as the noble Baroness.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, if the noble Earl will allow me to interrupt,
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he does not, of course, have the tremendous advantages that I have.
THE EARL OF GOWRIE: My Lords, that was very gracefully said.
My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, said, a year and a half ago my noble friend Lord Drumalbyn and I spoke as strongly as we knew how on the Second Reading of a rather similar Bill in your Lordships' House. I do not propose this afternoon to detain your Lordships by making substantially the same speech again, but I should like quickly to resume one theme. Our Government recognised, with the noble Lord, Lord Robens, that in terms of international comparisons this country was not doing too badly where industrial accidents and fatalities were concerned. But we recognised also that although there was very roughly the same incidence of fatalities and of all accidents in this country in 1970 as in 1961, in several European countries there had been a notable decline in accidents per head during the same time.
So, as well as honouring formally the work and the great achievements of Lord Robens and his Committee, we agreed with the Committee in practical terms that this country had reached some kind of plateau in accident prevention. We recognised that we needed new institutions and new initiatives; that working along the same lines was unlikely to produce a dramatic breakthrough. Since then we as an industrial nation have suffered the appalling trauma of Flixborough. We are to be reminded of this again this afternoon in a Statement, if we need any reminding. This debate, indeed, is taking place in the shadow of Flixborough.
I remember that in Government I had the pleasant task of presenting a great international chemical company with a base in this country with an award to celebrate five years of operation without a single disabling accident. I said then that although the avoidance of accidents or incidents which do not cause injuries appeared in a way to be negative, the achievement of non-events as it were, it could only be done by positive and active means.
We have now to learn and learn quickly from a cataclysmic event. But if

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Flixborough has cracked the whip of immediacy at us, we must also recognise that the accidents and ill-health which are still occurring—the on-going situation, so to speak—are quite enough justification for these new initiatives; 1,000 people killed every year and perhaps as many again dead from prescribed diseases. At least half a million reportable accidents—and by that term I mean accidents which involve one having to take three or more days away from work—23 million working days lost each year at a cost, I am told, of some £200 million. And one cannot, of course, quantify human cost. So if the Bill can push forward new initiatives and generate additional concern we welcome it. If the new initiatives and concern can put paid to some proportion at least of all that carnage and cost, then all sides will declare themselves grateful to it, and doubly grateful to the sterling work of the noble Lord, Lord Robens.
But it is because of this general good will, this unpartisan concern, that I so much regret the tacking on to the Bill, by a minority Government, of what can only be described as a few partisan banners. We cannot keep politics out of safety and work legislation because that would keep Parliament out, and that would cut out Ministerial responsibility. But we can surely keep out politicising. What has been added to the Bill is a special privilege to one slice of our working life—a big and important slice, but a slice all the same. I refer, of course, to the special privilege for recognised trade unions to appoint safety representatives and establish safety committees. I refer to the contentious and therefore partisan and, in my view, damaging stuff in Clause 2. This privilege is "in prescribed circumstances", certainly, and words like "request" are used. But I find that such emollients cannot cope with the difficulties we find here and the fears that we have.
What are the difficulties? Of course the Opposition recognise, with the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, that in many cases the trade union is the normal organisation for creating the safety committee. Of course we agree with the Under-Secretary of State for Employment when he said in Standing Committee in another place that as a lifelong trade unionist he
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has had occasion to feel somewhat critical of our trade unions for being too obsessed with pursuing wages rather than with getting themselves involved in such matters as health and safety. Good for the Minister for saying that! But what about the interests and the legitimate democratic rights of others employed in firms and in industry? There are many firms where there is no union. There are many only partially unionised firms. There is nothing to be said against unions or unionising, of course; but safety and health at work is just what it says and should not, in my view, form any part of a recruiting drive.
My Lords, we find that the Labour Party is always talking about industrial democracy. Yet it looks to us as though here a Labour Government are going out of their way statutorily to deny the opportunity for representation of work safety committees to non-trade unionists. We are concerned, too, for the fate of those individuals who have long and successfully concerned themselves in safety and who might wish to continue to be safety representatives. If only recognised trade unionists can do the appointing there might be circumstances in which some people with admirable records could get edged out. What I fear most of ail is the possibility of safety and health at work getting caught up, perhaps all too literally, in the machinery of bargaining between unions and employers.
Imagine a situation—and I do not say that it would occur often, but it could occur—and the Bill seems to me to encourage it to occur in which a union-appointed safety committee could intervene in an existing pay dispute with the subtle air of saying that if the dispute could be settled to the union's satisfaction there might be a slight lessening of pressure on the safety front. We must neither politicise or commercialise this area of life. I have said that we would be vigilant in Committee on these aspects. Generally, of course, as I have also said, we welcome the Bill. It is not before time. I do not mean that the Government have been laggard in putting it forward. On the contrary, I congratulate the Government for completing its stages in another place within three and a half months of the General Election. But it is well known that the new package of safety and health legislation has been held up for too long

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by one or two seismic inter-Departmental rows. The Secretary of State himself acknowledged this on Second Reading in another place. Good for him, too!
The Secretary of State said he was glad that the Whitehall war had led to triumph all round. He said he was prepared for the laurels to be shared by every Department in Whitehall so long as the Department of Employment retained the sword. He felt that they did. I suppose that they do, or I should say, I suppose that he does. But I cannot close without shedding a metaphorical tear for that great Department of State—the Department of Employment—so denuded of functions and personnel as to be Whitehall's, or rather St. James's, "streaker". Look at the limbs it is losing, to use a gorier description: Training and Employment Services to the Manpower Services Commission; Industrial Relations and the Manpower Consultancy to the Conciliation and Arbitration Service: Factory Inspectorate to the Executive and Commission under the legislation before us, and the Employment Medical Advisory Service also. I grant that the Secretary of State is still Head of Commonwealth but he is surely no longer Rex Imperator, or perhaps I should say Pes Imperator.
We on this side, my Lords, were going to do the same thing, so perhaps I should keep my mouth shut. I rather regret the current vogue for hiving away, if not hiving off. Add a dash of regional dispersal and a dash more of regional devolvement under Kilbrandon-ism and it seems to me you have a perfect recipe for anxious and confused civil servants.
Once again, I am grateful for the chance to have taken part on Second Reading of the Bill. With a few qualifications we wish it every good fortune. By "we", I do not mean just the Opposition. This country initiated the Industrial Revolution. For better, as well as worse, and like it or not, that revolution remains the hope of most of mankind. It has improved the human situation but at tremendous cost to our environment and even, should war become endemic, to our humanity. It is up to us as a species to humanise the Industrial Revolution. This Bill contributes to the effort.

FLIXBOROUGH DISASTER: PUBLIC INQUIRY
4.9 p.m.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, with permission I should like to repeat a Statement which has been made by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Employment in another place. These are his words:
"I will with permission, Mr. Speaker, make a Statement about the Flixborough inquiry.
"I said in my Statement on June 3 that I would set up a Public Inquiry which would deal with all the issues raised by the Flixborough disaster. I have come to the conclusion that this could best be done in the following way.
"First, I shall set up an inquiry under the Factories Act to establish the causes and circumstances of the disaster; and shall ask for advice about any immediate lessons which we can learn from what happened.
"I have asked Mr. Parker, Q.C., to serve as Chairman and Dr. Pope, Vice-Chancellor of Aston University, to be Deputy Chairman. The following people have agreed to serve as Members:
Dr. Davidson, Reader in Chemical Engineering, Cambridge University.
Mr. Bill Simpson, Head of the Foundries Section of the A.U.E.W.
I shall ask this Court of Inquiry to report as quickly as it can, consistent with a full examination of what occurred at Flixborough.
"The work on site in connection with the investigation which was instituted by the Factory Inspectorate immediately following the explosion is now virtually completed though metallurgical and chemical investigations are continuing and will take some time to complete. The information and evidence so far gathered will now be given to the members of the Inquiry. The investigation team (and all the resources of the Inspectorate) will be available to make such further inquiries as the members of the Inquiry think desirable.
"Secondly, this disaster has naturally raised public concern about the

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risk of similar disasters at other plants of this kind. The whole matter will have to be taken up as soon as possible by the Health and Safety Commission to be set up shortly under the legislation which we are presently considering. This was specifically recommended by the Robens Committee.
"However, in order that an immediate start can be made on the examination of these problems. I have after consulation with those of my colleagues who have an interest in these matters decided to set up an expert committee to begin work on the nature of the hazards presented by these large-scale plants and on the ways in which people who work in them, or live near them, can be safeguarded and reassured. I shall ask the committee to report in due course to the Health and Safety Commission so that Ministers can be advised on what further steps need to be taken, including the licensing of plants which present particular hazards.
"The expert committee will later this year have the full resources of the Health and Safety Executive to be established under the new legislation to help them with their work. But I do not intend to wait upon the new legislation. I am establishing immediately within my Department an organisation specifically concerned with these major hazards; and the Home Secretary has agreed with me that we should at a very early date bring together within this organisation the Explosives Inspectorate and people from my own Factory Inspectorate This will ensure a unified organisation to deal with these problems."
My Lords, that completes the Statement.
4.13 p.m.
THE EARL OF GOWRIE: My Lords, from these Benches I should like to thank the noble Lord for repeating that Statement, which is of course so highly apposite to our debate that I do not think it is necessary for me to comment in any detail upon it. I did indeed mention Flixborough in my speech a few minutes ago. I would ask the noble Lord two things, and if he cannot answer now I should be very happy and very grateful if he would write to me. No one will
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of course condemn the Secretary of State for not waiting for the legislation we are discussing this afternoon or for acting in haste on this issue, but will not the organisation that he is proposing to set up within his own Department to some degree pre-empt the work of the Health and Safety Executive? I mean the major centre of initiative for work in this field which the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, referred to earlier. Or will, perhaps, the personnel be the same? Secondly, my Lords, I should be very grateful if the noble Lord could tell us what is the present situation as to fatalities. I tried to get a list earlier, before this debate, of the number of people killed and injured, but I found it hard to do so.
LORD AVEBURY: My Lords, we are also very grateful to the noble Lord for repeating the Statement made in another place. In view of what he said about the necessity for full disclosure of information under the legislation we have just been discussing, may I ask him whether he does not consider that the information and evidence which has so far been gathered, and which he says is now being made available to the members of the Inquiry, should also be given to the Chemical Industries Association and the trade unions concerned, so that if there are any preliminary lessons to be learned from it in relation to other plants they can be acted on immediately? Secondly, may I ask him what will be the relationship between the Committee of Inquiry into Flixborough itself and the other expert committee which is to begin work on the nature of hazards presented by large-scale plants as a whole? Is it not important that there should be the closest possible relationship between these two bodies?
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, I am grateful to both noble Lords for the way in which they have responded to this Statement. The first question asked by the noble Earl, Lord Gowrie, was about whether or not the special organisation being set up would or would not pre-empt the work of the new body. My Lords, it will not. In fact, it will be part of the organisation which will be taken over by the new body when it comes into existence. I am sorry that I do not have the information for which the noble Earl asked, about the number of people killed

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and the number who were injured, but I will certainly react to his suggestion that the information should be conveyed to him in writing at the earliest opportunity.
I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, for the suggestions which he has made. As noble Lords appreciate, the number of Ministers in this House does not always ensure that these matters are dealt with by people who are departmentally knowledgeable. Therefore, the best I can undertake to do is to pass on to my right honourable friend the Secretary of State what I think are useful suggestions, in which I am certain he will be interested.

HEALTH AND SAFETY AT WORK ETC. BILL
Second Reading debate resumed.
4.16 p.m.
LORD AVEBURY: My Lords, from the fact that we initiated the debate on the Robens Report in 1973, as early as January 30 of that year, it may be inferred, and correctly inferred that we attach a great deal of importance to the subject of the Bill. We are on Record as in general support of the principles which were laid down in the Robens Report, which we now see embodied in this Bill, and I should like to summarise them briefly as a framework for my remarks. First, the status of health and safety at work should be raised in the minds of individuals, and everybody in industry has an important role to play in this matter. Secondly, legislative protection should be given to the whole of the working population, and millions of workers who were formerly excluded from the provisions of the legislation should be brought in. Thirdly, seven different inspectorates established under nine groups of Statutes and supported by 500 Statutory Instruments should be replaced by a unified Statutory and administrative framework. Fourthly, more flexible procedures should be developed for countering new hazards as soon as they are identified. Fifthly, potential dangers to the public arising from industrial processes or materials should be dealt with by the same authority that looks after safety at the workplace itself. Finally, the framework should be of an
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enabling nature so as to cope with rapidly changing industrial situations.
My Lords, I do not intend to cover all these matters, but to pick out one or two of them which seem to be of importance—and some have already been mentioned in the speeches of the two noble Lords. I agree broadly with the noble Earl, Lord Gowrie, as to the criticisms that we have to make of Clause 2. The Liberal Party has always placed great emphasis on worker participation, and of course we approve warmly of the thinking behind Clause 2, which provides for a key role to be played by the safety representative where he is appointed. But we have this reservation about the way in which it has been done by the Government: that the appointment of a safety representative by recognised trade unions in cases prescribed by the Secretary of State is perfectly satisfactory in an industry such as coal-mining, where 100 per cent. of the workers belong to the trade union concerned, but it seems to us that it leaves a gap in those industries where a small proportion, or none, of the employees is a member of the union. I say this, not in any anti-union spirit, because I am a member of two trade unions myself, and 1 want to see the trade unions fully participating; but, at the same time, I do not wish to see the protection of safety representatives and safety committees denied to those workers who are in industries where the unions are weak.
We understand that there are 5 million people in employment working in wholly non-unionised plants, and out of a total work force of 24 million there are 11 million workers who are not members of any trade union—a state of affairs which we may well deplore but which we have to take into account in framing this legislation. It is by no means certain that non-unionists are generally in less dangerous occupations and, therefore, in less need of safety representatives and the committee to be appointed in the Bill. One can think of comparatively risky jobs where the trade unions have hardly penetrated at all. An example was given in another place the day before yesterday when the problem of trade union representation for workers on North Sea oil rigs and platforms was dealt with by the Secretary of State for Employment. He emphasised that there were difficulties here, that the problem required care and

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attention and he was not content with the present situation. In the meantime, until we can make provision for adequate trade union representation of the workers on these oil rigs and platforms, they will be denied the benefits which are conferred on other workers by Clause 2 of the Bill.
The other major point to be made on employee participation is that without full access to all the relevant information any form of consultation would be a complete waste of time in some work situations where such information is essential if the trade union representative and the safety committee is to take action. I am thinking particularly of the case where potentially harmful substances are being used or produced. I was very glad to hear the noble Lord say that the intention was that there should be a free flow and full availability of information and advice, but I should like some reassurances on the parts of the Bill which deal with this matter. It is, as has been said, an enabling Bill and it does not lay down any detailed procedures for the disclosure of information. The intention, as I understand it, is that it will be supplemented by codes of practice under Clause 16, and presumably it is these codes which will specify how an employer is to comply with the obligation laid on him in Clause 2(2)(c) to provide:
"… such information … as is necessary to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health and safety at work of his employees."
That is also a responsibility which is placed on the Commission in Clause 11,
"… to make such arrangements as it considers appropriate for securing that … employees … are provided with an information and advisory service … "
on matters connected with health and safety.
I think that these arrangements are unlikely to meet the demands of people who have said that precise details of health risks should be given to workers. It seems to me that where there is an identified causal connection between an industrial process and ill-health, as, for example, exposure to radiation, there is no problem because safe working limits are laid down and workers are entitled
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to all the relevant research findings which in these cases are normally in the public domain. But where there is a link between a process and a disease which is of a statistical nature, or where a substance has been shown to cause disease in experiments on lower animals, perhaps in much higher concentrations than would be usual in the work environment, then what is to be the responsibility of the employer and of the Commission?
This is not a theoretical question as one can see from the discussion of the oncogenicity of vinyl chloride monomer in the very interesting article in the New Statesman of June 13. The circumstances were that in 1971 an Italian scientist found that rats exposed to high concentrations of vinyl chloride monomer developed tumours of the skin and lungs, and some developed bone cancers. Subsequent investigations by another Italian showed that with concentrations of this substance as low as 50 parts per million some rats developed angiosarcomas and that the U.S. Manufacturing Chemists' Association repeated the experiment on mice with the same results. In January of this year a works doctor at a Kentucky chemical plant revealed that four workers at this plant, which makes P.V.C. from the monomer, had died of liver cancer and since then another 15 deaths have been reported from similar factories in the U.S.A., Sweden and the United Kingdom.
The point of this story, so far as the present discussion is concerned, is that it is now alleged that the Manufacturing Chemists' Association held in confidence for at least a year the preliminary but significant findings of the Italian research workers. One could not say that a recognised health hazard had been identified until the epidemiological studies of former employees had been undertaken and even now there are disagreements about the safe limits of exposure to vinyl chloride monomer. But could we not say, with the benefit of hindsight, that workers in these plants should have been informed of the relevant findings as soon as they became available?
In this connection I should like to refer to Clause 28 which deals with restrictions on the disclosure of information. I find it somewhat disturbing that the

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clause is couched in a negative frame. It reads as follows:
.. no relevant information shall be disclosed without the consent of the person by whom it was furnished"
but then it goes on to list a number of exceptions. I would have preferred that this clause was worded:
"Relevant information should be disclosed except where the Commission was satisfied that commercial interests might be harmed."
Paragraph (b) reads as follows:
"without prejudice to paragraph (a) above, disclosure by the recipient of information to any person for the purpose of any function conferred on the recipient by or under any of the relevant statutory provisions"
is allowed. I want to know definitely from the noble Baroness who is to reply whether "any person" mentioned in this paragraph would include the safety representatives of the employee. It is vital that in these circumstances they should be given the information so that they can take any necessary action on it.
There is provision in the Bill for the Commission to require the testing of any substance. I think that provision is in Schedule 3. One might hope that in future any new chemicals coming on to the market used by industry would be subject to far more stringent testing for possible harmful effects just as we have now for new pharmaceuticals. It is highly desirable also that the Commission should make full use of its powers to require medical screening of employees in factories where substances known to be toxic are used. I believe that the Factories Inspectorate had such a power, but it was very sparingly used mainly because of lack of resources. I think also this provision for screening could well be—
LORD WYNNE-JONES: My Lords, would the noble Lord permit me to ask him a question on this point? He refers to the question of new chemicals. Does he refer to new final products or to intermediates? It seems to me that the intermediates are more likely to be dangerous than the final products and they might not be coming on the market.
LORD AVEBURY: The noble Lord has a very good point. One example was given to me of screening investigation undertaken by the Factory Inspectorate into the incidence of mesotheliorna,
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which I think was caused by a chemical intermediate and not by a final product. I think the noble Lord has made an extremely valid point I was not confining my remarks to the screening effect of final products but also of intermediates. The provision for screening in this Bill could also be very effective in helping to identify the factors at work which cause psychiatric ill-health.
When we were discussing the Robens Report last January I referred to criticisms that were made by Mr. David Ennals, who was then Director of the MIND Campaign. He said that very little, if any, attention had been paid by the Robens Committee to mental illness and Mr. Christopher Mayhew, M.P. who is now chairman of MIND complains that this is reflected in the Bill. The Secretary of State, in reply to him, assured the House that wherever the Bill speaks of "health" it means mental as well as physical ill-health, and the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, reiterated this in his speech this afternoon. I think it would have helped to reassure workers in the field of mental health if this had been spelt out rather more precisely and not just in the definition of personal injury contained in Clause 49, to which the noble Lord also referred.
What really matters here is how the Commission set about their task in practice. Very little is known about the work-associated factors in the etiology of mental illness which, as Mr. Mayhew pointed out in that debate on Second Reading in another place, is now a very significant reason indeed for absence from work. This is a question on which there should be the very closest co-operation between the Commission and the E.M.A.S. and is perhaps an argument for more formal links between the two organisations than we find in the Bill. Incidentally, one finds, on making inquiries, that only one senior medical officer out of 100 doctors employed by the E.M.A.S. has been appointed to deal with mental illness. I do not want to be dogmatic about the future of the E.M.A.S. but it seems to me on balance, for the reasons I have given, the necessity of close co-operation between the E.M.A.S. and the Commission, that ultimately it should form an arm of that body.
Finally, if I may make a brief reference to Part III of the Bill, under Clause

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57 the scope of the building regulations is to be very considerably widened so as to further, inter alia, the conservation of fuel and power. This is a matter that has been under discussion since a long time before the oil crisis of last autumn, and in particular one might refer to the study made by the Economist Intelligence Unit in 1969. Yet we still have the lowest insulation standards of any country in Europe except Spain. Yesterday it was announced that the Secretary of State was to establish an Advisory Council on Energy Conservation to identify the areas in which energy is potentially to be saved. That is all very well, but in the case of insulation we already have these estimates made by the E.I.U. as well as the official calculations of the Department of the Environment itself which were published twelve months ago in the Department's journal Construction.
In the light of this evidence, surely the Department should anticipate the new building regulations by making it a condition of the approval of loan sanction that local authorities should adopt the higher standards which are to be prescribed on all new housing from now on, and that they should recommend to the private sector that it should follow suit. I made some very rough calculations of what this might save on the public sector dwellings which are to be constructed during the course of this year. There will be, we hope, 125,000 dwellings completed, and if these were all typical three bedroom semi-detached houses and we adopted the "U" values which I understand are to be prescribed under the new building regulations, the saving in the heating bill for a householder would be about £25 per annum. That could be achieved at a cost of not much more than £30 per dwelling. I worked out from that, that to recover the additional cost of this insulation the tenant would have to be charged another 10p a week, but during the 33 weeks in which his heating apparatus is turned on, the cost of heating would be reduced for him by 75p a week. I should have thought that that was a matter of some importance for the many thousands of tenants of local authority dwellings who are facing large increases in their heating bill just at this moment.
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The noble Lord, Lord Hughes, mentioned that Lord Robens told the Government to get on with the job quickly. But as in many other instances one could name, the gestation period of this Bill has been elephantine and as it approaches its final stages the problems which it seeks to remedy have become acute. We on these Benches will do our best to facilitate its progress so that in this short-lived Parliament we can score at least one major legislative success which will be approved by the nation as a whole.
4.35 p.m.
BARONESS HORNSBY-SMITH: My Lords, I am not altogether sure of the propriety of laying claim to a second maiden speech 24 years after I made my first in another place, but I am hopeful that I can claim your Lordshipc' indulgence for my first venture in this august Chamber. It is by good luck rather than by judgment that I am in the unusual position of agreeing with very great pleasure with the very lucid explanation which we had from the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, in introducing this measure to us to-day, although when I am less inhibited than on this occasion I have no doubt I shall find myself agreeing at Committee stage with the reservations made by the noble Earl, Lord Cowrie.
Health and safety at work concerns us all and the Report of the noble Lord. Lord Robens, and his very distinguished Committee was, in my view, a masterly analysis of the jungle of regulations; the grave accident fatalities; and the enormous amount of personal suffering imposed by ill health which was brought to light by their very comprehensive study. We were also made clearly aware of the point that the human and economic toll of industrial accident and sickness imposes very large burdens on the population in industry. I particularly welcome the emphasis placed in the Report, which is reflected in this Bill, not on increased and yet more complicated controls, but on simpler laws and, above all, greater involvement of management and men with Government, directing their attention to the hazards and problems of specific industries as well as those common to all.
Legislation and a whole army of additional inspectors will not achieve the goal

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we seek in this Bill, until we get a universal acceptance that this is not the Government versus industry; it is not a pernickety boss or a foreman against the shop floor; it is not "them" and "us". It is everyone accepting their individual and corporate responsibility towards safety and good health and the onus is on every one of us to preserve human life. The misplaced bravado of those who say, "Well, it is my neck, is it not?", is just as reprehensible as carelessness about the safety of others. The Bill involves us all—Government, employer, employee and public—and I join in the welcome of it. There will always be the hazard of human error, but most accidents result from misplaced overconfidence, or ignorance of, or contempt for, the safety regulations. I quote from personal knowledge of two accidents. A few weeks ago, an elderly man looking forward to his retirement from work and walking home from lunch in the West End was fallen on from above by a window cleaner who had been provided with equipment that he did not apply. Both of those people lost their lives. I am also aware of a case in a factory with which I was associated some years ago when a young man with unduly long hair, who had been told by the foreman to wear a safety hair net, whipped it off as soon as the foreman was out of the way and, as a result, was half scalped.
I hope that the new Health and Safety Commission and the Executive will receive the maximum support from the C.B.I. and the T.U.C. and also, and not least, the many invaluable voluntary organisations which do magnificent work for the disabled and the sick. Without the many millions now raised by such voluntary organisations interested in research such as Cancer Research and the Heart Foundation the scope of research and care in this country would be poorer and thinner. I hope very much that the specialised contributions that these voluntary and specialised organisations can and do make will be taken into consideration, will be recognised and will be represented on the committees where their knowledge and expertise applies.
I have been associated with several of these organisations, but I declare my prime interest to be the Arthritis and Rheumatism Council for Research, of whose Appeals Committee I am proud
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to be Chairman. The arthritic diseases affect more of the population than any other group, and although they kill the least they cripple the most and take savage toll in long and continuing pain. I am sure your Lordships will forgive me for my natural "plug" for my pet charity and for singling out this affliction, but I should emphasise its importance in relation to this Bill. We lose 37 million working days each year from arthritic diseases, and for too long research into these diseases has been ignored and patients have been told that they "must learn to live with it".
I am proud to say that it is due to the persistence of distinguished medical men, such as the late Lord Homier, the late Lord Dodd and the late Dr. Copeman, who worked ceaselessly from the tiniest beginnings, that this scourge has been placed on the research map, and at this moment the organisation is financing 79 research projects in the National Health Service teaching hospitals. We are financing the Kennedy Institute where, some of your Lordships may be pleased to know, they can now cure gout. I should hastily add that during a recent visit there I discovered that gout is by no means an affliction solely of the landed gentry. At this moment, we are hoping to raise £1 million to install a clinic to deal exclusively with the many arthritic diseases going under the name "backache" under the umbrella of a London hospital. These are matters which are of real concern and they make a genuine contribution under the terms of this Bill. It is my earnest hope that the deep concern, and the warm-hearted generosity of the British people in so many of these fields of voluntary medical-aided research, will give the opportunity to co-operate in the new organisation's work and to continue their great contributions.
I have been privileged to visit many industrial health centres, many of which are lamentably under-used since there is undoubtedly a certain resistance among employees to their personal ailments being made known to the firm. This is regrettable, but in some cases understandable. It is an important precaution of these industrial medical centres that the non-professional staff must be fully apprised of the absolute confidentiality of

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their work. It is no use the doctor keeping his Hippocratic oath if a chatty and inexperienced junior, typing that doctor's tapes, gabbles away about the fact that poor old Jones' nervous tension is because his wife is an alcoholic, or the boss's secretary was not holidaying in Spain but having an abortion.
The security of these records must be very tightly supervised if employees are to have confidence in the industrial medical service. The vital industrial statistics we require can be in the form of numbers or cyphers put through a computer, but we shall not get cooperation from employees unless they are sure that their medical records are really secure. The doctors are fully aware of the situation, but junior staff are not always appreciative of what it means. Medical information should be disclosed only to that limited number whose responsibility it is to ensure that employees are not taxed beyond their personal and medical capacity, or to gather the vital statistics which we need to increase safety and improve health.
I believe that much can be done to create this confidence, leading to greater use of the medical centres, many of which are already in existence, by encouraging services where an individual, either through misplaced pride or because football viewing takes up too much of his time, delays seeking medical advice about matters which are not so dramatic in his life but which are very important; for example, for deteriorating sight or hearing. Equally important is the provision of services for dentistry, because so many put off a visit to a dentist until an abcess is formed or their teeth break up. There must be encouragement to those concerned to widen the use they make of the clinics or centres which are set up under this new scheme. There is much to be done, and a great deal of provision must be made. But in the last resort it is the duty of each one of us to safeguard himself and to safeguard others.
4.45 p.m.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, I am very happy to be the Member of this House to follow the noble Baroness who has just made her maiden speech, because we were colleagues in
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another place for many years, although we always sat on opposite sides. It would be an impertinence for me to congratulate her on her manner of delivery, because I have heard her so often in the past and I know that your Lordships' House will be hearing her again in the future. She is a seasoned campaigner, and although she has addressed us to-day in the mildest way, I can assure your Lordships that on those occasions when she feels deeply and when she is not making a maiden speech and therefore does not have to be non-controversial, you will hear a noble Baroness who knows her subject extremely well, who feels very strongly and is determined to get her own way when the time comes. I should like to say this to her. I think she will find that the most attractive aspect of this House is that there is no Speaker upon whom one has to gaze for long periods, hoping to catch his eye. In this House, one is either called automatically or one calls oneself.
I warmly welcome this measure, and shall be astonished to learn that there is any Member of this House on either side who opposes it, at least on the ground that it is premature. I regard one of the most interesting parts of the Robens Report to be that which is covered by pages 216 to 218, which contain the bibliography. They reveal that there have been 44 official publications since 1876, and 26 other publications on some aspect of health and safety at work. Added to this, there have been hundreds of Questions and a great many debates which I have attended, some of them in another place and others in your Lordships' House. Then, seven years ago, Mr. Ray Gunter (the then Minister of Labour) promised a consolidation measure. Again, eighteen months have elapsed since the publication of the Robens Report. I am not surprised, having listened to speakers to-day from both Front Benches, to learn that everybody has grown a little tired of the constant delay. It is the first time that I have heard such an honest revelation that one reason for the delay is the quarelling between Departments. Generally civil servants hide these things and always blame the politicians for quarrelling and being unable to reach decisions.
For all these reasons, but particularly for this delay, I attach first importance to the procedure of translating this Bill

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into action. I believe that is the first thing we should look at, and not to debate once more certain aspects of the Bill which we really know by heart. We should ask: when will the workers themselves feel the results of this change in legislation? I do not want to be depressing, bur I foresee inordinate delay. The Commission will propose regulations to the Secretary of State who, in his turn, is empowered to modify them. I believe I am right in saying that he is going to be allowed to take only one month to make these changes. But there is no time limit, so far as I can see, during which the Commission can delay making their proposals. The Secretary of State, having made his modifications, must come along and lay them before Parliament, and who can say how long Parliament will take to confirm these changes? In my opinion, if no time limit is set to this procedure, the pace of the slowest in this exchange of opinions will dictate the speed, and I ask at this stage for the Government to consider this aspect of the Bill.
How can we expedite the necessary legislation? Of course one wonders whether this legislation will be overtaken before it operates effectively owing to the rapid progress of technology. Indeed, the number of processes used in a modern factory have multiplied with such rapidity that the hazards to health are only appreciated long after the dangerous material has been in use. Even then, some of those in authority drag their feet before the worker is given effective protection.
It astonished me in reading my newspapers during the week to learn that every pneumoconiosis victim is going to be given a certain amount of money. We have known about pneumoconiosis during the whole of this century. If one wants to have one's heartstrings really wrung, go to the pneumoconiosis clinic in Cardiff. It is the most tragic sight in the world to see these men, sometimes 40 or 50, sitting there with an incurable disease which must inevitably be fatal. We have known about this disease for years and years, and to-day, in 1974, we are told that a certain amount of money is to be given for research into pneumoconiosis. This is an example of the delays which I still feel will continue even when this Bill reaches the Statute Book.
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It will be said, no doubt, that the incidence of fatal accidents in factories in the early part of the century was greater than in the past decade. But there was greater ignorance, combined with less public concern with human life. I recall meetings which I addressed in the 'twenties and 'thirties on the high maternal mortality rate in the country. Those meetings were heralded with the slogan, "It is more dangerous to be a mother than a miner", because in those days the maternal mortality rate was higher than the death rate in the pits. The women's demonstrations undoubtedly hastened the provision of legislation and hospital accommmodation for mothers, with the result there was a striking decrease in the maternal death rate.
I often wonder why men have not demonstrated, or used the strike weapon, to ensure higher standards of industrial safety. My noble friend on the Front Bench has told us that this is an enabling Bill; that it is going to deal with generalities, but I find that less than satisfying. We are to have a Commission which will no doubt decide which aspects of the accidents or diseases of industry will be dealt with. Undoubtedly they will avoid, in the first place, those which have caused us a great deal of trouble so far as coming to a conclusion with regard to remedying them is concerned. First, may I deal with noise. I have stood here before the last Government with my noble friend Lord Taylor of Mansfield when we had debates on noise. Nothing has been done, although I remember there were useful recommendations which went out from that debate. I find nothing in this Bill which deals specifically with noise. Again I say that I am told that this is so because it is an enabling Bill. But how are we to ensure that the Commission will deal with what I believe is one of the most important aspects of factory work: that is, the effect of noise of machines on the worker? The Industrial Health Advisory Committee issued a code of practice on noise with a 90 decibel limit. I should like to know why this is not included forthwith in the statutory safety regulations. This took a long time to decide. To be told now that it is simply to be left to the Commission to decide whether or not they will give it a priority is very disappointing.

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Of course, none of this legislation will be effective unless it is made strictly enforceable and unless the penalties imposed are of such a severe character that a bad employer will weigh the cost of the penalty against the cost of providing safeguards against injury or disease. The bad employer must be reminded of the necessity to take action in a way that really hurts him.
The hazards of certain individual processes are not confined to the worker, but may be transmitted to the worker's family. I would remind the House—because we raised it here—that in 1971, following the discovery of raised levels of lead in dust in the vicinity of an East London lead works, it was discovered that the lead levels in the blood of children living near the factory were above normal. Of course it was said that they were playing in the infected dust and that that was how they became infected. But it was also suggested—and this is important—that workers may add to the contamination of the home environment by bringing home dust containing lead in their clothing. This emphasises the need for good hygiene within the factory, and the need to prevent workers from taking soiled clothing home for washing. A simple thing, but I wonder how many wives of workers in industrial areas are faced with washing clothes which might well be impregnated with some of these new materials which are used in industry to-day?
I was going to speak strongly about the farm worker and say that he must be given urgent consideration, and that it was a fundamental mistake to leave his fate with the Agricultural Ministers because, after all, they have done very little about this in the past. But I am now delighted to hear that the Bill has been amended. It will now be possible for the Commission to deal with the accidents and diseases of the farm worker.
Why do I feel so strongly about this? It is because—and I see my noble friend Lady Elliot of Harwood in her place; one of the finest farmers in the House—I feel that the Commission surely can be more objective than the Agricultural Minister. The Agricultural Minister is concerned with the farmers all the time, seeing them on deputations, and so on.
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Almost certainly he will be influenced by their interests. They may well come and put a case to him and, against his better judgment, he may decide in their favour. It is in their interests that we should have a Commission which can be objective. I should like to remind the House about what happens on a farm. Those of us who are not farmers—and there are many in this House—are apt to think of a farm as a delightful place where nothing unpleasant happens. Apart from the high rate of accidents on the farm, which includes an increasing number of children, the farm worker can suffer from chemical poisoning, from a distressing dust disease, and from deafness and other nervous disabilities from driving a tractor.
I will not weary you, my Lords, because I have wearied you on other occasions, by telling you of the high incidence of brucellosis among agricultural workers. Here is a case in point where the agricultural Ministers have dragged their feet. Here we have—and I say this because veterinary surgeons tell me this themselves—most veterinary surgeons having had some attack of brucellosis in their professional life. It is a very common condition among agricultural workers. Therefore I am truly delighted to hear that now the conditions of the farm worker will be considered by the Commission.
I also welcome the new clause whereby directors of companies must provide in their annual reports information concerning the arrangements for securing the health, safety and welfare of the employees of the company. There is nothing like publicity to ensure that negligent employers will face up to their responsibilities to their workers. If an employer can hide negligence, as he has over the years, nothing will be done. But at long last the bad employer is going to be compelled to give publicity, in his annual report, to his failure to do his duty. Furthermore—and I hope the noble Lord who opened the debate will consider this matter—the greatest vigilance must be exercised to ensure that bad employers do not use the excuse offered them in Clause 2 by the phrase "so far as is reasonably practicable to evade their duty to employees. I deplore this phrase. It has given every bad employer in the country an opportunity to run away from his obligations.

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My last constituency was an industrial constituency in Lancashire. I ask noble Lords to forgive me if I repeat myself here because we have had debates on these matters before. The picture of some of the industries in Lancashire and the conditions of some of the workers there always rises before me. It is something which, to one coming from London, makes a great impact. One sometimes reads of these matters in medical books on industrial diseases, but to find oneself a Member of Parliament for a constituency where one actually sees it all at first hand is a most distressing experience. I found in my constituency men of 45 looking 55 or 60, with chronic bronchitis, who had worked in a dusty atmosphere for years. They came to see me wheezing, hardly able to breathe. When I was shocked at looking at these comparatively young faces and said I was astonished to see them in this condition at their age, they did not complain; and when I attributed this to the conditions of their work they dismissed it as though it were a reflection on their manhood to suggest that the work had defeated them. This is the great difference between the woman worker and the male worker. The male worker feels all the time that he must show that he is capable of standing up to whatever conditions are sent to try him in his work. Undoubtedly, therefore, ignorance and fatalism have contributed to the mortality rate in industry.
I should like to know how the 16-yearolds, who are now kept at school until they reach that age, are prepared for industry before they enter a factory. I am told that some of them visit a factory or a works of some kind. But I want to know what lessons they are given by a well-informed instructor in their own form room as a preparation for their working life. Are they given talks on the health hazards of various jobs available in their neighbourhood, and are they given instruction on the statutory regulations in force, so that they may be truly prepared for the hazards of industry?
Finally, I welcome the unification of the Inspectorate. I find that the Factory Inspectorate as it is to-day, chronically below strength, has its efficiency diminished. I want to know how it is proposed to increase the numbers and improve the quality of the Inspectorate. Why is there not a drive for well-qualified
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women? What about all these women who are now leaving our universities—first-class material for factory inspectors? Why is there this eternal prejudice and discrimination? We are always told: "We have not enough factory inspectors. That is what is wrong. That is why a factory can be visited only once every four years." I ask—I have asked it before, but nothing ever happens: why is not a special drive made to get women factory inspectors? For I believe that the quality of the inspectors is the determining factor in ensuring action against a guilty employer. Legislation, my Lords, will be ineffective unless it is strictly enforceable, and this can be guaranteed only if the Inspectorate consists of keen, dedicated people whose compassion provides a motivating force.
5.6 p.m.
THE EARL OF COURTOWN: My Lords, it is with great pleasure that I congratulate and welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Hornsby-Smith, on this the occasion of her maiden speech in this House. To-day is the first time I have had the pleasure of meeting her and hearing her, and it has indeed been a great pleasure for me to do so. But her reputation has gone far before her, and I have no doubt we shall hear her many times again on rather more controversial subjects than we are dealing with to-day. My Lords, this debate inevitably is held with the shadow of Flixborough hanging over it. The Bill adds important safeguards. But however the regulations are drafted, it will be impossible to prevent the occasional disaster—just as happens occasionally but regrettably in air transport. I welcome the aspects of this Bill which attempt to deal with this type of disaster, but we shall be deceiving ourselves if we think it is ever possible to stop these disasters completely.
I support generally this Bill which follows closely the recommendations of the Robens Committee. The main way to improve safety in working establishments is to get management and employees fully involved in the common object of preventing accidents, taking into account that some four-fifths of all accidents occur, as the Report says, in handling materials, falling, striking against objects and misuse of hand tools. With this, of course, has to go control of dangerous

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processes for possible internal and external effects. The Bill provides a basis on which better co-operation can develop and the means of producing regulations and codes of practice to ensure progress. This mixture of regulation and codes of practice is entirely right. Regulations by themselves can deal with only part of the problem. Changes in technology are such that it takes far too long to issue regulations to deal with all new changes and conditions. But with these should go codes of practice which may prevent these dangerous sets of circumstances from ever arising at all—rather than waiting until the danger has been found and then the regulation is issued.
I have, however, certain reservations about parts of the Bill. Clause 2 is inclined to be too dogmatic about the organisation required. It implies, for instance, that safety committees are essential, while emphasis needs rather to be placed on the best organisation in each establishment to ensure co-operation, involvement and action.
Emphasis is placed in paragraph 65 of the Robens Report on the appointment of safety representatives. It is stated there and in paragraph 62 that safety committees are not necessarily the best way of dealing with the matter. In paragraph 70 the Report recommends that:
"The form and manner of such consultation and participation would not be specified in detail, so as to provide the flexibility needed to suit a wide variety of particular circumstances and to avoid prejudicing satisfactory existing arrangements".
I know of one company with an outstanding safety record which has safety representatives but which has no safety committees. It depends for communication and discussion upon ad hoc meetings with all the work people concerned. The company to which I am referring is a large concern. Other companies have works committees which deal with safety matters satisfactorily. A safety committee is only a means to an end and in some establishments there may be better ways.
Paragraph 70 of the Robens Report then says that:
"Guidance should, however, be given in a code of practice outlining model arrangements, including advice on joint safety committees and the appointment of employees' safety representatives".
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I hope to move an Amendment in Committee stage to provide that safety committees are not regarded as the sole means of communication and discussion.
The Bill lays down also the procedure where there is union representation in the establishment. and I have no quarrel with that. I find myself in agreement with what the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, said about this. However, this Bill deals with all working establishments—offices, laboratories as well as workshops. We know from the Bolton Committee that 70 per cent. of small firms have no union representation, and the Bill applies to them just as much as it does to everybody else.
I should not think of accusing the Government of trying to use this Bill as a means of proselytising for unionisation. However, I think it is likely that, even if we have increases in unionisation, most small firms will stay out of it for many years, because it is not worth the unions' time to try to bring a rapidly changing population into the unions in very small units. Therefore we should not encourage a situation in which people may think that this Part of the Bill does not apply to them. Here again I am seeking advice to enable me to produce an Amendment which will not quarrel with the idea that when there is unionisation and union representation in an establishment that shall be the means for discussion and the appointment of representatives, but that where that is not the case then there shall be some other way of electing representatives.
It is recognised in the Robens Report that the Commission must be a body of the highest repute and staffed accordingly. It must, therefore, have a considerable degree of independence. That is why, presumably, it was made a Crown Commission. However, I am worried about the extent to which it is to be subservient to the Secretary of State. Clause 11 says that it is the duty of the Commission to submit to the Secretary of State from time to time particulars of what it proposes to do. It has,
"to ensure that its activities are in accordance with the proposals approved by the Secretary of State",
and it has,
"to give effect to any directions given to it by the Secretary of State".

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If we accept that, I do not think that it is necessary to go further.
Clause 16(2) states that:
"The Commission shall not approve a code of practice under subsection (1) above without the consent of the Secretary of State …"
My Lords, there are going to be a great many of these codes of practice and it will delay them if they have to be approved by the Secretary of State. It will also reduce the prestige of the Commission if they all have to be approved by the Secretary of State and it will provide an excuse for the duplication of staff in the Department of Employment.
Finally, my Lords, I am sorry that there has been no mention in the Bill of occupational medical services by which I mean those services which are provided by large firms in the private and public sector and also by groups of firms in certain areas. In the debate on the Robens Report, I referred to the real advantages of these services to companies and to those who work in them, and I do not intend to repeat them here. However, the Bill deals with the Employment Medical Advisory Service, and the existence of a medical service in the company is complementary to it. It can provide great assistance in diagnosing and preventing possible hazards to health, including mental health. I do not see how, without the assistance of these services, the E.M.A.S. can carry out the purpose which is given to it in Clause 51(1)(b) of
"giving to employed persons and persons seeking or training for employment information and advice on health in relation to employment and training for employment".
I understand that in the E.M.A.S. there are about 100 doctors. If one realises that one large company has 24 doctors working in its own medical service, with another 50 or 60 on a part-time basis, one understands that the E.M.A.S. cannot hope to deal with individually employed persons in the way that is suggested in Clause 51 unless it has the co-operation of some other form of medical service.
I should like to see encouragement given to companies and groups to set up medical services where they do not have them because they can relieve the National Health Service of a considerable burden. Many minor ailments can be dealt with in a works surgery, often by a nurse, which would otherwise entail a morning off work at a National Health Service
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surgery involving the time of a doctor. If the matter requires the attention of a National Health Service doctor, then it is referred to him.
My Lords, I hope to move an Amendment to Clause 51 to draw attention to the value of these occupational and industrial health services. However, in general this is a desirable Bill. I strongly support it and such criticisms as I have made I regard as relatively minor compared with the value which the Bill is likely to produce.
5.19 p.m.
LORD TAYLOR OF MANSFIELD: My Lords, first may I apologise to my noble friend who moved the Second Reading of this Bill and to other noble Lords for my absence earlier. I attended a funeral this morning in Mansfield, and I have made the journey purposely from that place to make a few observations upon this very important measure. I heard part of the maiden speech of the noble Baroness and I should like to join with the noble Baroness, Lady Summerskill, and other noble Lords who have offered their congratulations to her. We are old colleagues from another place. I remember one occasion when the noble Baroness, Lady Hornsby-Smith, came into the Mansfield constituency and opened, I think it was, a health centre; at any rate it had something to do with the Ministry of Health. I hope she felt that she had a welcome. She did extremely well on that official occasion and, like other noble Lords, I shall look forward to hearing her on future occasions.
I think no one in your Lordships' House would deny that during the past 30 or 40 years—say since the end of the war—there has been a revolution taking place in industry. There have been new processes, new techniques, new mechanical means to deal with industrial production. In my humble judgment that has created problems in the field of safety and welfare. If we look back into history, the hazards were not so great as they are to-day; once it was the hand loom, then we had the Industrial Revolution and the introduction of mechanical means. Sometimes I am a little mentally perturbed and wonder, in connection with the effort and the research that is put into these new industrial processes, whether we give as much time and effort

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and money to the questions of research so far as safety and health hazards in industry are concerned.
I believe this was in the mind of the Secretary of State, Mrs. Castle, in 1970 when she appointed a committee under the chairmanship of one of her own colleagues, Lord Robens, to review the provision made for the safety and health of persons in the course of their employment. It is true that in 1961 we had the Factories Act, and also the Mines and Quarries Act, to which I shall refer in a moment or so. That was in 1954 and it was solely, entirely and exclusively connected with the mining industry. But apart from those two major measures, since the end of the war the momentum for the provision of safety measures against the health hazards in our industrial life has not been as great so far as the new industrial processes are concerned.
In reading the Robens Report I have found that after two years of patient and detailed investigation, consulting papers. receiving a lot of evidence, meeting a number of people who are expert in the field of research on the subject of industrial safety the Report was published, and we owe a deep debt of gratitude to the Committee who spent so much time and gave so much thought to this important problem of safety and health at work. I do not agree with all the conclusions of the Robens Report but it is illuminating, analytical and it deserves the attention of everyone connected with industry, both management and workers.
I am glad to see that in the Robens Report and also in the Bill there is a particular recommendation that the general public, when away from work, are not immune from the hazards brought about by industrial processes. I am reinforced in this opinion by the reference made to the tragedy at Flixborough a few months ago. People living in their homes a long way from where the explosion took place, people walking in the lanes, pursuing their leisurely activities, were not immune from the results of the explosion that took place at Flixborough. In this connection I am also reminded of what took place at Aberfan in the late 1960s: little children in school were not immune from the effecits of the industrial process of that mining valley.
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However, two years of hard work by the Robens Committee produced an illuminating document, and I hope and believe that it will focus attention upon an important aspect of the present industrial life in Britain.
There is an old saying that I use myself on many occasions and in many places:
"A fence at the top of the cliff is much better than an ambulance at the bottom".
Prevention is always preferable to cure. and it may be that in our misguided moments we are tempted to put more emphasis upon cure than upon prevention. After all, that is what the Robens Report and this Bill are all about to devise preventive measures, measures that cannot and must not be ignored if an improvement in the disturbing figures of accident and industrial diseases is to be brought about.
I do not want to indulge in a number of quotations from the Robens Report, but in my view paragraph 10 is important and reference should be made to it. In my humble judgment it is both sombre and disconcerting—1,000 people killed every year. That is the size of some small villages—1.000 people have been wiped out. In 10 years at that rate the number would be 10,000 and that is the equivalent of a small township being obliterated. Five hundred thousand—half a million non—fatal accidents of varying degrees of severity. That is the human side.
On the economic side, our attention is drawn to the fact that 23 million working days are lost annually, and I do not believe these figures take any account of the non-reportable accidents. which have inflated the figure to much more than 23 million days, if my assumption is correct. Figures of this kind from all sides of the House make us think. In human terms, the tragedy behind figures such as these is terrible; in terms of family relationships it is enormous—a lost husband, a lost father, a lost son, a lost daughter. We cannot estimate the gloom and the sorrow behind the figures that I have quoted in this respect. It behoves every one of us to realise our responsibility to do everything we can to bring about an improved state of affairs.
My Lords, I have thought for a long time that the greatest and most important

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investment in industry is not cash, not pounds, shillings and pence. This is especially the case in heavy industry and in industries where there are great hazards. The lives and limbs of human beings make an important investment in our industry. These people not only need, but should have, the utmost protection at their places of work, whether by legal or by voluntary means. This is really what the Bill and the Report are all about. I shall talk about trade union influence in this sphere. The history of safety and health legislation over, perhaps, the last 150 years, reveals a fascinating story, in which one point stands out clearly. There was not the same degree of safety awareness at that time as there is to-day among employers, and even among Members of Parliament. Of this I am quite sure. The present Secretary of State, Mr. Foot, made some remarks in this connection, which I do not propose to quote. I have no doubt at all that the trade union movement of this country over generations has played a noble part in the sphere of safety and health at work. Individual unions, and the Trades Union Congress, have their special committees and their research personnel dealing with safety and health.
It is not true, as is sometimes expressed, and in many quarters believed, that the trades unions deal only with wages and conditions. That is a fallacy. Their work is much wider and goes much deeper than that. The trades unions are concerned with problems that arise every day; they display an active interest in conditions in industry with regard to safety and health hazard. I doubt whether there would have been the codes of practice, the sanctions, the prohibitions and the penalties embodied in legislation had it not been for the work and the agitation over many years by the trade union movement. In heavy industries like mining and steel, in agriculture, deep-sea fishing and many of our modern factories, where the incidence of accidents is high and the health hazards great, the trades unions regard as not the least of their functions, in co-operation with management, the job of providing the best and most up-to-date safety measures to minimise accidents and industrial diseases. With what end in view? It is in order to avoid so much misery, unhappiness and
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loss of faculty by such people as I have described.
From my own experience over the years, I know that the miners union has ungrudgingly expended many thousands of pounds in the interests of its members, and in devising high standards of safety. I am pleased and proud to have been identified with the miners' union for so many years because they have done so much in the realm of safety at work. I shall return to this matter in a moment. I want now to say one or two words about Clause 2 and Clause 10. I am glad that the noble Baroness, Lady Summerskill, made references to what I regard as objectionable words—the words "reasonable" and "practicable".
I recall that during the Committee stage in another place on the 1954 Mines and Quarries Act, we spent hours in argument over similar words in that Bill. Once again the monster has reared its head. At the behest of someone, these words have been resurrected, placing upon the employers a basic obligation to do everything they can so far as the safety of their own employees is concerned. But I think those two words are a means of escape. Further, I think they provide a happy hunting ground for the legal profession, provided cases are ever taken into court. I should like to see removed the escape route from the basic obligation of the employers implied in these two words as laid down in the clause. In the 1961 Factories Act there are two references only to those two words; in the Mines and Quarries Act 1954—and my noble friend Lord Blyton, who played a large part in our debates on these words, will reinforce what I am saying—these two words are extinct.
My Lords, I will make one or two observations on Clause 10. This is a very important clause because it creates the new authority, organisation, call it what you will, to deal with this question of safety and industrial disease. The clause outlines the responsibilities the authority will have. In some ways I think it is a good thing. It is going to be a big umbrella. But I have a reservation so far as the mining industry is concerned. I am glad. as the noble Baroness, Lady Summerskill, intimated, that agriculture, which was left outside the jurisdiction of this new Commission, has now been brought within its purview. The view

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of the mining industry as a whole—this is not only the miners' union, but the N.C.B., the Institute of Mining Engineers, B.A.C.M. and N.A.C.O.D., organisations representing the official element—is that at any rate at this stage, in view of what has been and what is being done so far as the mining industry is concerned in this sphere of safety, it would be better at this moment to leave well alone.
There has been no end of correspondence with the previous Government and with the present Government. I could give many quotations, but that is not my intention. All that I would do is to repeat that the mining industry is not happy about the possibility of the breakup of the present system which exists in this field of safety so far as the mining industry is concerned. It is a long catalogue. I will say no more than this. Right from pit level, there are the safety committees, the works inspectors, the area safety committees, right up to Hobart House, the headquarters of the National Coal Board, in co-operation with one another.
While everything is not apple-pie in this sphere so far as the mining industry is concerned—and who would expect that it could be in view of the hazardous nature of the industry—all these elements within the mining industry feel that at this stage, at any rate, until some of the other industries are brought up to the level of the mining industry in this field of safety, it would be much better to leave well alone. I want to say to the noble Baroness who is to reply, that she can give an assurance that in the meantime the 1954 Mines and Quarries Act will not be repealed, and that nothing detrimental will be done about the obligations of the Mines' Inspectorate.
The only other thing I want to mention is on a new point entirely; I leave mining for the moment. It is in regard to the exploration for oil in the North Sea. I do not know whether any of your Lordships read the Sunday Times last Sunday, but there was an illuminating article on this matter. It was about men diving anything up to 1,000 feet in these Northern waters. The effect of compression upon their bodies is quite alarming; and then in the decompressors into which they have to go to be decom-
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pressed, that, too, is not a very pleasant experience. I want to give only one quotation, if I may, from this very illuminating article in regard to this new field, with all its hazards to safety and to health. This is what the writer of the article, Mr. David Blundy, had to say:
"Despite the fact that North Sea oil will play a key role in the British economy and is now a major multi-million pound industry, and despite the obvious dangers of the job, divers still work"—
this is the operative sentence that I want to impress upon your Lordships—
"without the protection of safety regulations. It is possible for an untrained man to be sent on a deep dive with inefficient or out of date equipment. As a former diver (whose name is mentioned) said, 'I have done dives on shoddy gear badly looked after and not properly understood. A bloke could get a job with a diving company if he got a medical from a doctor and then lied about his diving experience."
In view of the revelations in the Sunday Times last Sunday, I trust that something will be done, because the numbers involved are increasing: the fatalities are increasing. I hope that something will be done so far as regulations are concerned to protect these men who are doing a very dangerous job. With those remarks, and with the reservations I have mentioned, I have great pleasure in welcoming this important Bill.
5.47 p.m.
BARONESS SEEAR: My Lords, may I, in commencing, apologise for the fact that I was not able to be in my place when this debate started because of a meeting which I had agreed to attend long before I knew that this debate was going to take place. I fear also for a similar reason it is unlikely—I apologise to the noble Baroness—that I shall be able to be here for the winding up, though I shall endeavour to do so if it is in the least possible. For the same reason, of course, it may well be that I shall be guilty of some repetition of points that have already been made, because I am unable to know what points have already been made since I was not here to listen to them.
My Lords, it is, I feel, unfortunate that this debate is not better attended. It reflects the, to me, quite extraordinary attitude of the public in this country—and it is reflected again in the attendance in the Press Gallery—towards health and

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safety at work. We are all deeply moved when there is a major catastrophe, as at Flixborough recently, but we have become inured to the idea that it is perfectly reasonable and acceptable that accidents and disablement go on day in, day out, the aggregate of which, if they were to occur in a single day or a week, or even a month, would be a matter of banner headlines. Surely at a time like the present, when we are bedevilled by problems to which we do not know the answers, it would at least be some relief to be able to tackle and to get results in an area in which to some extent we know the answers.
I say with confidence that we know the answer, because those of us who have in any way, as I have, in however small a way, been involved directly in this question, know that a great many of the accidents which happen in industry are avoidable and could have been avoided; and that where managements, unions and the labour force combine to see that accidents do not happen they are to a large extent reduced in both severity and number. This is a problem that is within our power to deal with, and it is a problem which should appeal greatly to the public at the present time. It has a most important humane element, as the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, has been pointing out to us. It has also an extremely important economic element. We speak with great feeling about the days lost in industry for this reason or that, bad industrial relations—and I am the last person to decry the importance of that—but it is far more within our power to cut down the total number of days lost, and all that that implies, in the field of health and safety. We know this because it has been done by the most competent and the most responsible employers, and what they can do others can do, too.
I regard the Robens Report and this Bill as matters of major importance. This Bill is not a routine piece of legislation which is being pushed through both Houses of Parliament, between other more exciting matters which will get the headlines. But do not let us imagine that when this legislation is passed, it will, by itself, bring about any results at all. Indeed, it could have the contrary effect. This legislation is to some extent a gamble. The noble Lord, Lord Robens, carried out a
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detailed investigation, and he has come up with an analysis of the problem that is different from the previous one, and with a radically different approach to the way in which this problem should be handled. We are here making a dramatic change from our previous approach to the improvement of health and safety at work. What the noble Lord, Lord Robens, and this Bill are saying is that while there must be law, there must be enforcement and there must be penalties, the most important thing of all is informed participative action in the improvement of health and safety at work. It is this that is new; it is this that is important; and it is in this area that, unless we take steps other than and in addition to those laid down in this Bill the Robens Report and this Bill, with all their good intentions will fail.
I have said that I agree there has to be law and there has to be enforcement, but the most important thing of all is awareness and knowledge throughout industry, from top to bottom, about what safety at work really implies. In fact, the Committee themselves took a participatory approach. We are committing ourselves, first and foremost, to a quite mammoth training programme for health and safety at work. It is vitally important that boards of directors should introduce policies for health and safety. Of course it starts at the top, but unless this is followed up by informed and skilful training at all levels the results will be negligible. This is not easily done. This is not something that just a couple of courses and a few films will achieve. It needs to be thought out, it needs to be made appropriate for the different groups of people going into industry, and it needs to be followed through with resources, time, effort and research into the results of training of this sort.
My first suggestion in connection with this Bill is that we should link up with the newly appointed Training Services Agency and ask them, and the training boards through them, to intensify and improve their training for safety, which is an absolutely vital requirement if this Bill is to be worth the paper that it is written on. I should also like to suggest that this training and safety—and I tried a little of this years ago, and I know how tricky it is; it is very easy to get it wrong—could well start in the schools.

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I believe that the teachers are worried as to what is done with the last year in school. An imaginative approach to keeping oneself whole at home and at work—I would put it like that, rather than "safety first", because that in itself can be regarded as a challenge to avoid safety measures—could well be introduced into the last year of school, as part of the bridge which needs to be built between what goes on at school and what goes on at the place of work.
So I would put training for safety at all levels. If your foremen are not safety-minded you can whistle for results, as you can if your rank and file are not safety-minded—in particular, the new entrants. I do not know how many of your Lordships are aware of the alarming rate of accidents among new entrants, school leavers, going into industry for the first time. This alone is something which, if you think about it in individual terms, is quite horrific. It means that youngsters in their first year or two of employment are damaging themselves, limiting themselves, restricting themselves for the whole of their working career, because of the accidents that they very often suffer through lack of adequate safety training and adequate preventive work at the point of entry into employment.
Linked with this, but second in importance, is the organisational side; the need to have safety committees and safety officers. I am glad that there are now powers to compel the introduction of safety officers and safety committees. Years ago I worked on such a committee and I know how constructive and effective they can be. I am sorry, however, that the Bill says—and I hope that this can be altered before it becomes an Act—that the safety officer can be appointed by the trade unions, and that when he is appointed he can require safety representatives who can require a safety committee. I should have preferred election from among the work force, rather than the appointing of safety representatives.
In addition to this problem of the safety representatives being appointed by the trade unions who can then require a safety committee, the clause overlooks a vital point. The most difficult places, and the most urgent places in which to
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bring about change, are the small concerns—the small shops, offices, workshops—in which trade union organisation is very often extremely weak and in which, as any of us who have had anything to do with this subject in the past know, the writ of the factory inspector has run in only a very slight way indeed. This is no criticism of the factory inspectors, who if I may humbly say so, are princes among our public servants. But it has always been difficult for them to get round to small places of employment. It is a question of numbers and organisation. It is in the small places where there is probably a very great deal going on that is extremely risky to health and safety. We cannot be absolutely certain, because we do not get any records that begin to be accurate about what goes on in small places of employment.
Therefore, I should like to see a right given to all employed persons, even if the trade union is not there to speak for them, to have safety representatives appointed and safety committees set up. That need not be instead of; it could be in addition to the clause that we already have in the Bill. If we do not do so, we shall leave unprotected by the new legislation large sectors of employed people who most need this protection. Indeed, many small offices are far more unhealthy to-day than many large scale factories. They have not had the same pressure on them, and their conditions, of work are often lamentably bad. We need to extend this clause, so that it is not only for the people who have the trade union protection, but so that all people can benefit from this advance.
The Bill, probably rightly, does not say anything about the kind of standard of safety and health that we shall require in the future. Present legislation embodied in the 1961 Act has been built up over a very long period of time, largely by additions, one by one and two by two, to legislation over a period of 100 years. I hope very much that the Commission and the Executive, when they come into being, will look at the whole problem of safety and health with fresh eyes, and will not merely adjust the legislation which we have had in the past.
This brings me to a rather special point, which I should like to take this opportunity of making. There has been, and will continue to be, controversy about

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the subject of protection given to women in employment. I very much hope that the Executive and the Commission will look at this anew. I should like to see us aim—and this is the policy in some other countries, and, indeed, in the I.L.O. but perhaps we cannot get it straightaway—at a standard of safety and health at work which is really good for both men and women. It is anachronistic to think that women require special protection which men, because they are so much tougher, do not really need. If conditions are unhealthy for women in almost all particulars, they are unhealthy for men—not in absolutely all particulars, but in almost all particulars. I should like to suggest that this be reviewed to see to what extent we can have legislation which covers both men and women, because this is a civilised standard of working conditions. The special protection for women should, in the words of Article 10 of the United Nations Declaration on Driscrimination be limited to those matters which arise directly out of women's physical nature.
In other words, obviously women will continue to need special protection in all those matters connected with pregnancy and child-bearing. There is a clear case for that. Otherwise, the objective should be that the standards should be so good that there is no need for special regulations to protect what, in this regard, is considered, probably incorrectly, as the weaker sex. After all, we survive a good deal longer than men, so it is doubtful whether we are the weaker sex but that is another matter. That should be the aim, at least. Maybe we cannot bring it about straightaway, but it is surely in that direction that we ought to be moving.
This is a radical Bill, not only in its approach to the way in which we want to bring about improved standards of safety and health at work but also in the machinery which is proposed for doing so, that is, in the introduction of the Commission, a semi-autonomous body to do the urgent job of ensuring that standards are improved and better methods of safety are enforced. I welcome any attempt to cut through bureaucracy, and to the extent that the Commission is a way of getting speedier action and a more down-to-earth handling of these problems than the traditional Civil Service procedures permit, that is entirely desirable.
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We have done this before. This is a new administrative and Governmental device for getting results, but that does not mean that we have sorted out all the problems connected with the use of this new device. As many of your Lordships have said, and as I said earlier this evening, this is a matter of the greatest importance. It is a matter on which Parliament must continue to be informed and on which Parliament must continue to express satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the way in which new methods are working out. I should be interested to learn, given this semi-autonomous Commission which is being set up, what devices are being worked out for ensuring ultimate Parliamentary control, and adequate Parliamentary control, over this whole task, while still leaving the Commission enough freedom to do the job and to do it in a businesslike way the freedom that is envisaged in the Bill, and which Lord Robens asked for when this new device was propounded.
However, I hope that Parliament is not going to be unable to come in and to question in the way that it seems to me it is still very much Parliament's responsibility to do. At the very least, would it not be proper that both Houses of Parliament should have a regular Report. annually or at whatever interval is deemed appropriate, and that this should be debated? This is not a matter that we can afford to leave solely to the Commission. Parliament should have an opportunity, at regular intervals, of reviewing what is going on, of expressing an opinion, of asking questions and expressing approval or disapproval, as the case may be.
6.5 p.m.
LORD WYNNE-JONES: My Lords, it was a great pleasure to be present in this House when the noble Baroness, Lady Hornsby-Smith, made her maiden speech in the House. I first met the noble Lady when she and I spent a week-end together, with Alfred Robens, at a seminar of the British Coking Industry Association many years ago, and I realised then that Miss Hornsby-Smith was to have a very important influence in political life. This debate has brought out a number of important points. It is perfectly clear that everyone welcomes the Bill. It is evident in the way in

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which the noble Earl, Lord Gowrie, made his own comments on the Bill, that he danced placidly round it, and where he objected he would equally have objected to the Bill when he introduced it himself, if he had done so.
THE EARL OF GOWRIE: My Lords, I am sorry but I must rise to my feet on this occasion. I made a longish speech on our Bill when it was given a Second Reading in January of last year, and the objectionable passages were not then in it.
LORD WYNNE-JONES: I naturally accept what the noble Earl says, but if he will look tomorrow at Hansard he will see that he did state that there were still matters in the Bill that would have been in when he introduced it and to which he would have objected. However, the important point is that there is no real objection at all to the principle of the Bill. That principle is completely agreed, and nothing that I want to say now opposes the principle. On the contrary, I think that this is a radical Bill, as the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, has just said, and a Bill that should be carried through as quickly as possible. There are, however, certain matters in it which I hope will be considered carefully at the Committee stage of this House and to which I hope the Government will pay serious attention. I refer to certain questions which arise with regard to expert professional advice.
If one looks at Clause 2 one sees that there is an obligation on an employer to set up a committee, and that that committee should deal with matters within the factory with regard to safety. However, there is no obligation, and I believe that there should be, upon the employer to take the best professional advice with regard to safety matters, because the question of safety is an important one and not one that can be dealt with without having the best professional advice. I could quote many examples of this, and from what I myself have seen there have been many cases where, inside a factory, steps have not been taken because there was no adequate professional advice at the time or no adequate professional advice that was used, at any rate, by the employer.
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I can remember up in Newcastle some years ago when there was a very serious explosion inside the hull of a ship that was being repaired, and it occurred in a most extraordinary way. The welders had been at work, using propane gas and oxygen and using their blow torches for doing the welding. They went away overnight, but they came back next day, and a man went down a ladder into the bottom of the hull. He lit his torch, and was surprised at the flame which appeared; it was quite different from the ordinary flame. He came out, but left the torch down there and another workman descended; and as this other man came down the ladder flames appeared on his protective clothing. Shortly afterwards there was an explosion, the man was killed and a great deal of damage was caused. Fortunately, only one man was killed; it might have been many.
I learned the story from the fire officer who conducted the investigation. It shows how expert opinion can be valuable, because this fire officer had taken much trouble to look into the question of explosions of that kind. He came to me and asked me, as a professor of chemistry, if I thought that his explanation was reasonable. I had no doubt that his explanation was correct. What had happened was that propane gas had been leaking overnight through a faulty valve. There had built up several cubic feet of propane gas in the hull. When the man went down and lit his torch—he had oxygen—instead of getting the flame of propane gas burning in oxygen, he got a flame of oxygen gas burning in propane. When he saw the nature of the flame—because the two flames are quite distinctive in appearance—he got out, climbed up the ladder and the propane gas held on his protective clothing began to burn as he emerged into the air. When the next man came down the whole thing exploded.
A diagnosis of this type cannot be done by unskilled people; it requires people of considerable skill to do it. Therefore, in my opinion, it is a matter of considerable importance for safety precautions, and when employers have safety committees they should be required to take expert professional advice in order to help them in coping with the problems which arise. Every industry to-day has to meet new problems which cannot be

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solved simply from past experience. They are problems involving new principles, and because of this there is a deficiency in the Bill, not only in its not specifically requiring this type of expert opinion, but also in the way in which it fails to incorporate certain expert services. I believe that the Bill is allowing such specialised services to disappear in favour of a more general inspectorate.
This matter was raised by my noble friend Lord Taylor of Mansfield in regard to the Mines Inspectorate. The mines inspectorate is a highly qualified, highly specialised body of men. Every mines inspector has himself worked in a mine. They have seen every type of mining accident and know the mining industry inside out. If anything goes wrong to-day they have direct access to the Minister. But under the Bill they will not; they will be incorporated into a general inspectorate. There is no certainty that an expert mining inspector would be sent to investigate a mine and to me that seems wrong. There is good reason for having a general inspectorate, but surely within that unit there should be a clearly defined category of mining inspectors. If we do not do that we shall be taking a grave risk and doing something which may cause real trouble in the mining industry in the future.
I believe that the same situation applies to the Alkali Inspectorate. It is a small but specialised body, dealing essentially with the production of acid gases from factories and the works connected with them. Over the years the Alkali Inspectorate has acquired a great deal of expertise. It knows how to go to a factory and deal with these problems. I have been informed by factory managements that the alkali inspector is able to talk to them in their own language and tell them, "We think you ought to do suchand-such an investigation in order to find out whether the process you are using is dangerous. We think that it is."
In this way the Alkali Inspectorate, not by laying down the law but by skilled discussion with the factories, is able to get an immense amount done. I am informed that this relatively small body of men succeeds in doing work out of all proportion to its numbers, because of its skill and its knowledge of the industries with which it deals. If we replace these specialised bodies with a general inspec-
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torate, we may do an overall good over the whole of industry but we may well do serious harm within those industries which have been having the benefit of the specialised work of the inspectors. I think that this is true of quite a number of functions. Clearly it applies to an activity such as the Radiation Protection Service, which is specifically mentioned in the Bill. But it is important to realise that already we have a very good service in certain fields and we should do nothing to undermine or damage that good service. Instead we should seek to have a wider service which will incorporate the best features of the old one.
Finally, my Lords, I would mention the problem that arises in regard to such disasters as the Flixborough explosion. When that matter was first raised in the House I called attention to the fact that the aggregation of dangerous materials was something that, in itself, was a serious menace. Even though it might be possible to use these materials safely in a small quantity, in a large quantity they are liable to go out of control. That problem is something which will have to be taken into account in the future, and I am glad to see that the Bill makes provision for it. But the provision will have to be wider than my noble friend Lord Hughes explained, when he said that there will be a right to decide the siting of the factories. I think that the Executive will have to go further and be able to decide the size of a factory.
In the case of Flixborough, as we know, the whole of the basic material for the production of nylon in this country was being produced in one factory. I do not believe that the economic advantages are ever great enough to outweigh the risks of doing that. Therefore, it ought to be one of the functions of any body which is concerned with examining such matters to insist that the whole is not to be put into one place; that if it is put into one place the danger is too great. I heard unofficially that it is probable that there was a fault in a line which had been inadequately repaired at Flixborough. But the point is not how it happened; the point is that these things can happen however many precautions one takes. It is impossible to have an absolute guarantee that such an accident will not occur.

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Therefore, it must be an important matter to minimise the effect of it, and I believe that this can be done by ensuring that we do not concentrate in one place.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, I should like to make one thing clear, if I may. In referring to a site I did not mean, nor was it in any way intended to imply, that it is only the site. I have been checking on what I said, and it included the words:
"In the case of new developments, the Executive will be able to get in at the planning and design stage".
Obviously, this will cover not merely the location of a plant but the size of a plant. But I will specifically draw to the attention of my right honourable friend the stress which my noble friend Lord Wynne-Jones has put on this point of the size of the plant, as well as its location.
6.21 p.m.
LORD MIDDLETON: My Lords, as the noble Baroness, Lady Summerskill, said when she spoke with such feeling, agriculture is a dangerous occupation. Everyone engaged in the industry has the common aim of reducing the hazards that multiply as farming becomes more heavily mechanised and as the techniques involving the use of chemicals become more and more sophisticated. There is, therefore, one simple criterion by which to judge any new legislation: is it or is it not going to make farmwork safer? Under the present administrative system, and since the Agriculture (Safety, Health and Welfare Provisions) Act 1956, the making of regulations governing farm safety and the enforcement of them has been the responsibility of the Minister of Agriculture. I have had a good deal of experience of the administration of farm safety regulations—as a farmer; as a member for a number of years of a county agricultural executive committee; and, when it came to applying the law, as a magistrate. I found it very difficult to fault the present system. The Ministry of Agriculture now has, in addition to a specialist staff in London, 8 regional safety inspectors, 31 divisional safety inspectors and 350 field officers. These field officers carry out a wide range of duties, but about 30 per cent. of their time is spent on safety work. One of the good features,
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which should appeal to those who like economical administration, is that often a safety problem can be seen and an accident prevented while a field officer is out on another task.
My Lords, there has been a depth of knowledge, and a sympathy with the technical problems, on the part of the Ministry that has led to wholehearted cooperation from farmers and their employees, who have willingly served on local farm safety committees, and safety standards on farms have improved enormously. The regulations now in force are widely recognised as being necessary. The timing of the application of certain regulations has wisely been geared to the ability of the industry to finance the necessary improvements. The farmer can always get advice on safety matters, and the Ministry have always recognised the value of education and guidance. I do not know of any case where there has been a feeling of injustice when a prosecution has been brought and a penalty exacted. The result has been what someone yesterday described to me as an entente cordiale between the Ministry and farmers and farmworkers, and the system has worked smoothly. But let me emphasise that this understanding was never, to my knowledge, due to any softness or lack of energy in enforcement. No respect for the Ministry could have resulted from that kind of policy. Therefore, any new legislation which seeks to alter this system of administration must be framed to retain the confidence of the industry. If it fails to do so, it is retrograde.
When this Bill first appeared it preserved the status quo and left the making of farm safety regulations and the control of their application to the Minister of Agriculture and his officers, with their specialised knowledge of farming techniques and working conditions. But now what is happening? As the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, has said, Government Amendments were introduced at the Report stage in another place, so that we now have before us a Bill which provides that agricultural safety shall be administered by the Safety Commission. My Lords, if that was going to make farmwork safer then no-one would be more eager than me to support in its new form a Bill which in other respects has so much merit. But I hope noble Lords

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opposite will forgive me if I say that I see the makings of a first-class administrative mix-up.
That the Ministry of Agriculture are experts in the field of farm safety is recognised under the proposed system, which envisages consultation on the making of regulations and using Ministry of Agriculture officers as agents in administering them. One must therefore ask the Government the question: why take overall responsibility away from the Ministry of Agriculture? Under the agency arrangement to be set up between the Safety Commission and the Ministry, no decision appears to have been taken, and certainly there was no clear statement from the Minister in another place, as to where the line would be drawn dividing responsibility between the Safety Commission and the Ministry of Agriculture. Any tinkering that leads to a division of responsibility for the supervision of the Inspectorate can lead only to inefficiency. The Minister of Agriculture, who under the Bill will have joint responsibility with the Secretary of State for Employment to introduce legislation specific to agriculture, must surely have a direct line of control over a supervisory hierarchy from London to the field officers.
Next, I would ask the Government: what is the line of authority on enforcement? To what extent will the Ministry of Agriculture officers have to seek the Commission's approval to prosecute or to embark upon some particular campaign? The answers to these questions are not to be found in the Minister's justification for these Amendments on June 18 in another place. I would also ask: to what extent has consultation been carried out in Scotland? So far as England is concerned, I know that the National Farmers' Union were consulted, but I believe they are very far from being happy with the present Bill. The English farmers' organisations are very conscious of the farmers' responsibilities for the safety of their employees, but they are convinced that the proposed system will not result in greater safety. They fear that the effectiveness of the Ministry of Agriculture may be diminished, and that the morale of its staff may suffer and recruitment be discouraged. They firmly believe that full responsibility for inspection and enforcement should remain squarely and
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unequivocally with the Minister of Agriculture, albeit within the general framework of a system operated by the new Commission in respect of industry as a whole.
One of the great strengths of the agricultural industry has been the excellent relations between employers and employees. Now, employers or self-employed outnumber full-time employees by 288,000 to 246,000. It will be a great pity if their respective organisations were to take diverging lines on working out a way of advancing their common interest in farm safety. I understand that the N.U.A.W. have felt that more could be done to enhance farm safety, and have given support to these Amendments, which are embodied in the Bill that we have before us. I urge them to consider whether this really is the way to reduce accidents.
If not enough safety enforcement work were being done—and I certainly have not any evidence that this is the case—will transference of responsibility necessarily provide the answer? It may merely be a matter of the number of officers. Up to last week the Government accepted the advantages of the present system; then they reconsidered the matter—inadvisedly in the opinion of a large part of the farming community. I cannot agree with the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, when he tells us that agriculture will get the best of both worlds. I beg the Government to consider yet further whether this amended Bill will really lead to fewer accidents on the farm. I believe it will not.
6.31 p.m.
BARONESS BIRK: My Lords, it is a great privilege for me that my first participation in a debate from the Dispatch Box should be on this Bill, which is a distinctive and exciting milestone in social history. I am also delighted to have the opportunity of congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Hornsby-Smith, on her maiden speech. It was not, as she said, very "maiden"; she is such an experienced speaker, so informed and spoke so well that I envied her when I think of the trepidation I had then and that I have now. I think she will remember that we met many years ago when, in another existence, I was doing an article on, of all things, red-headed women in politics. It is very nice to see her now; although

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we have the same colour hair we sit on opposite sides of the House, and actually her hair matches my side better.
This debate has been so highly informed and I have sat back getting more and more frightened. I cannot claim the technological expertise of the noble Earl, Lord Courtown, the medical expertise of my noble friend Lady Summerskill, the scientific expertise of my noble friend Lord Wynne-Jones, and the tremendous experience in trade union affairs and in mining of my noble friend Lord Taylor of Mansfield, nor the formidable knowledge of other noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, who seems to be able to speak on so many subjects in such depth, and of course the noble Earl, Lord Gowrie. I should like to thank him for the very charming remarks he made. I felt at one point we should go into a two-step to the music of "Me and My Shadow."
I am particularly interested in this Bill because, apart from my lack of expertise and knowledge, I have always had a deep interest in health and social conditions, and it would be a very amputated interest if it did not include health and safety at work. Indeed, it was when I was at school and reading of industrial conditions in the last century that I was first propelled into the politics of reform.
Before dealing with some of the specific points raised by noble Lords during the debate I should like to spend a minute or two in speaking about what seems to me to be one of the most important aspects of the Bill and its implications. As the Robens Committee pointed out, following their comment that the great bulk of existing provisions are concerned with physical circumstances—
"… it has long been widely accepted that equally important factors in safety and health at work are the attitudes, capacities and performance of people and the efficiency of the organisational systems within which they work. This is not yet reflected in legislation."
It is this whole area of human relations in industry—I prefer the phrase to "industrial relations" in this context—which takes a big leap forward in this Bill. I have always disliked the clarion calls for "participation", "partnership", "working together" which trip off the tongue in a wordy vacuum. But here they are highly relevant since they can be
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directed to mutually beneficial purposes. The performance of employers in the health and safety field ranges from the highly efficient and socially responsible attitude of some organisations to the outrageous irresponsibility of others, whose negligence seriously impairs their efficiency and productivity. The measures in this Bill, spelt out by my noble friend Lord Hughes, make a clear statement of the obligations of industry in the widest sense which are also very much in the self-interest of industry.
Just as health and safety at work is too often at the bottom of the shopping list of management, so its priority has too often been lamentably low on the priorities of trade unions. The opportunities for working together under this Bill should reap industrial and human dividends which go beyond the frontiers of health and safety. One of the most important ways in which the vast number of measures incorporated in the Bill can be given real guts is in the field of the free flow and availability of information, which clearly the Government and all Parties in another place consider most important since the Bill was substantially amended to strengthen these provisions.
First, the new Commission is given specific duties to inform, advise, educate and train. This means not just leaving it as a statutory requirement, but taking positive and lively initiatives to produce information in a way that makes an impact that cannot be ignored. The key to this is something with which I have been closely concerned in a variety of other areas; namely, communication. This does not come about merely by passing an Act of Parliament. Once that is passed then the work begins: it requires initial research, careful monitoring and, above all, professional assessments of the results of the publicity and education, the sort of evaluations which are essential if the end product is to be something more solid than routine good intentions. This has been mentioned by, among others, the noble Baroness, Lady Seear.
There is a professionalism in this field which is as important as the scientific and medical and other forms of professionalism which are required in carrying out the various other measures and regulations. The core of the exercise must always be the individual, and the individual, whether employer or worker,

1703
must be aware of his or her responsibilities and the risks which are involved in any process or job. There is no easy and short cut to this, and I think it is important to recognise—and we as a Government recognise—that this is so. It cannot be plucked out of the air by posters, circulars or even a wide use of the media unless it is strongly backed by education, starting, as my noble friend Lady Summerskill has pointed out, at school. I would go further. Basically a great deal of this is in the realm of health education which makes people aware of the risks associated with their jobs and starts with the knowledge of safety in the home as a good foundation which naturally leads to safety at work.
During the period of time when I was chairman of the Health Education Council we found a vast amount of ignorance in all areas of health, whether it was safety in the home—leaving detergents around for children to get at; not enough pressure on making child-proof containers for dangerous drugs and pills—or lack of knowledge about such things as contraception and lack of awareness of so many people about the workings of their own bodies. Without health education of this sort extended to industry, I think it will be very difficult to make all the various other measures work with the necessary rapidity and vitality which I think everybody who has spoken in this debate has stressed.
Only knowledge can lead to action, and action implies responsibility, the responsibility of the individual who must not be the passive receiver of Governmental edicts. I was very pleased to hear the noble Baroness, Lady Hornsby-Smith, mention the example—which I also had in mind—of the young man with the long hair. That has happened in other instances as well, where people have felt that they are being told to do something, just as an order, and have not even begun to understand the dangers to themselves in what they are doing. By the time they are doing the job in the factory it is often too late for them to learn, so we have to start this education very much earlier. The noble Lord, Lord Avebury, also raised this point. He also raised a point on information which I will deal with later.
Secondly, the Bill gives inspectors of the Executive specific duties concerned with keeping workpeople informed about
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health and safety hazards in their work place. Part of the inspectors' functions will be to explain those risks, to explain the results of tests carried out and to make sure that communication is strictly two-way. This means ensuring that the clause requiring enforcing authorities to appoint inspectors having suitable qualifications must be interpreted in these terms. If this is so, it seems to me that this should go some way to meeting the points raised by my noble friend Lady Summerskill and others in increasing the interest in the inspectors' job, which should help to recruit from a far wider spectrum of men and women than is the case at the moment. So far as women are concerned, I certainly agree with all that the noble Baroness said, and at the moment there are evidently 45½ women engaged—the half woman is a part-time woman.
But there must be a drive in order to get both keen and dedicated people—which was another point made by one noble Lord—and this means trying to interest young people at school, and recruitment at universities and other places of further education should be given the same priority as other job opportunities. I understand that if schools have well-developed programmes of careers education, there are likely to be some lessons in the later stages about the work situation and they might well include safety aspects of work. There may also be visits to observe work processes when health and safety factors might be discussed.
Although I am speaking from the Front Bench, it would be quite untrue for me to say that in this field, as in many other fields of health education—and I do not think other members of the Government would even say—one can be complacent or satisfied with the situation as it is. This Bill is a very good instrument in order to nudge education authorities—which means locally as well as centrally—into seeing that young people are prepared for their life in industry.
Obviously occupational health services at the work place should be and must be the aim—and I think the noble Earl, Lord Courtown, was making a particular point of this—but the fact is that we have a great lack of resources in this field. There is no need for me to go into the problems that exist in the National Health

1705
Service at the moment, particularly with regard to nurses and the shortages of doctors, but this does not mean to say that one should not make the best use of the resources that we have, and where there are not works doctors at the moment it seems to me that G.P.s must be brought much more into the educational process. There should be far more communication with the G.P.s and also, where there are works doctors, between the doctors and the G.P. This again is a two-way exercise.
I would say also to the noble Earl, Lord Courtown, that there is nothing to stop many more enterprises setting up excellent schemes similar to those which are already being carried out by a number of firms. Indeed, these schemes are not only of benefit to the workers, but by giving good and immediate medical care and attention the firm should benefit. In fact those firms who undertake these schemes—and I have discussed it with several of them—say themselves that their gain is quite as great as the workers' gain because they have a far smaller loss in production, lower absenteeism and far better morale. There is nothing in the Bill which precludes voluntary effort and voluntary initiative in this and in many other fields. Since so often we hear from all sides of the House—but particularly from noble Lords opposite—of the need to encourage the individual and voluntary effort, it would seem a pity not to inspire it further and to press on with it at the moment when we need it so much.
I should now like to come to some of the points raised by noble Lords. I must apologise if I cannot cover everything, but as noble Lords will agree there have been a tremendous number of very important points raised in this debate. First, I should mention the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Popplewell, who, through the generosity of my noble friend Lord Hughes, has had to wait some time so that I had the opportunity of answering him. I am very grateful to the noble Lord for giving me that honour. In answer to his question on transport, I can say that the Bill covers transport workers. The general obligations apply in relation to transport workers and provide a basic cover. In the case of road and rail workers—and I think he particularly referred to rail workers—the
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relevant regulations made under the Bill will apply unless they state otherwise. In the case of sea and air transport workers, no regulation made under the Bill will apply to them while they are at sea or in the air, unless the regulation specifically so states.
One of the main points that has been raised by several noble Lords, including the noble Earl, Lord Gowrie, is this question of joint consultation and safety representatives. The first point here is that the position at non-unionised work places will not be at all changed by the Bill. At present, employers have no duties and employees have no rights regarding arrangements for joint consultation on health and safety, so the Bill is not taking away any existing rights. What is far more important, as I have just said on another point, is that there is nothing in the Bill which will prevent the continuation of existing voluntary arrangements worked out between work people and management. I hope that this links up with the remarks I made earlier on information and education. Where there are people who do not belong to a union or are in a non-union shop, they still have the opportunity to press for an arrangement with their employers, and to try to make a voluntary arrangement. If an employee wants to take advantage of these new provisions, there is nothing to stop him joining a union. Naturally, we hope they will, since the unions are clearly the bodies best organised to take on these initiatives. They have this machinery. I was rather surprised—not from a political point of view, but from a literary point of view, because the noble Earl, Lord Gowrie, is a poet and always writes and speaks so well—to hear him using that terrible word "politicising" which really cut across my ears as well as my views on the policy of it.
THE EARL OF GOWRIE: My Lords, may I interrupt the noble Baroness? I take her rebuke about the word. It is not one that rings very pleasantly in my ears, but I should be very grateful to her—or to anyone else in the House—if she can supply me with a word which will do the job as well. I was making the distinction that we cannot keep politics out of safety and health, but that the wrong kind of partisan political activity should not be there.
BARONESS BIRK: My Lords, in this case the noble Earl would have been well advised not to use it or even an alternative, but to take it as it is, that the machinery is the right sort of machinery. As my noble friend Lord Taylor of Mansfield pointed out in his very impressive speech, the record of the trade union movement in this field is so great that without its work we would not have had the kind of safety regulations we have to-day. Certainly, we should not have had them in the mining industry. The noble Lord was worried that some of these might be lost under the Bill, and I shall deal with that point later.
If one looks at certain industries or plants where health and safety are at their lowest, these places are very often where one finds a great number of women workers. I have been around and have seen a great deal of light industry where women are mainly employed, and it is an unfortunate fact that women will not group together or press for improvements, although things are better now. They have always been reluctant to join trade unions, and therefore their conditions have not been as good as they are in other industries, where the unions have fought hard for a far higher level of safety.
LORD AVEBURY: My Lords, will the noble Baroness give way? Is she not reinforcing my argument that where you get non-union plants the need for safety representatives and safety committees is probably much greater than in an industry such as coal mining, where a long record of activity by the N.U.M. has led to the successful introduction of safety procedures?
BARONESS BIRK: No, my Lords. I take the point of the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, but would say that the conclusion he has come to, if looked at in another way, is that people would be better off if they joined a union which would work on their behalf. I would put the position in that way, and not turn it round the other way. There is a point here involving industrial relations, which could cause tremendous difficulties if the legal rights were not left with the trade unions. This is a very serious point for our economy, whichever Government is in power.
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My noble friend Lady Summerskill mentioned the delays in the regulation-making procedure. Perhaps I might say here that the Report came out in 1972. This Government have been in power only since the middle of March, and yet this Bill is now having its Second Reading in your Lordships' House. So we are getting on with the legislation. The recommendation that there should be a single authority means that the authority has to be set up, and it would be impossible to set a standard time limit which was applicable to the making of all regulations. Nevertheless, the plans are to go ahead with it as quickly as possible. Here, again, I think it is when people like my noble friend press for this and similar things that we shall get some action. It should not just go through and people should just not forget about it.
My noble friend Lady Summerskill, together with the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Mansfield, raised a point about the words "reasonably practical". I will not delay the House with all the arguments that have surrounded this very difficult phrase. But the Bill makes it clear that it will be up to whoever has to comply with a general duty to prove in court that it was not reasonably practical to do more than he did. There is no "let-out" and it is contrary to the general position, when you are presumed innocent until proved guilty. In this instance, the employer has to show that he did everything that was reasonably practical. As the duties apply to everything in and about the places of work, from the simplest welfare facilities to the most technologically complex processes, it seems to me quite unrealistic to make absolute duties which cover such a vast range of circumstances. If you do this, it makes for even more vagueness, and people may try to do less.
The noble Lord, Lord Avebury, raised the question of early warning of hazards from the use of toxic substances. This is an extremely important issue in this Part of the Bill. The noble Lord mentioned the problem of identifying and controlling the use in industrial processes of substances which can create health risks of an insidious long-term nature—risks which often remain hidden until serious damage has been done. For the first time, a duty

1709
will be laid on all those who market substances for use in industry to ensure that—dare I say it?—so far as is reasonably practical they are safe and without risk to health when properly used; that adequate research and testing is carried out with them, and that information about the products and their properties is made available to those who will use them. I accept immediately that this is not 100 per cent. perfection but, as was pointed out by the noble Earl, Lord Courtown, and others, there is no way of making absolutely sure that you prevent any accident or disaster unless you stop the activity entirely. At least this will go very much further than anything which is in existence at the moment to try to prevent not only major accidents but some of the more insidious hazards which are still major though on a smaller scale than was mentioned by my noble friend.
The noble Lord, Lord Avebury, also referred to the provision of information to workpeople. The codes of practice can certainly be used to give detailed guidance on the type of information which employers should give to workpeople. The disclosure of information in pursuance of an inspector's function certainly permits disclosure of information to workpeople's representatives. That is clearly laid down in Clause 28(8). The noble Earl objected to Clause 16, which concerns the requirement for consent by the Secretary of State before the Commission approve a code of practice. The Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Employment in another place has promised to consider an Amendment to this clause to loosen up the requirement for the Secretary of State's consent; and I hope that on Committee stage we shall be able to introduce a suitable Amendment.
My noble friend Lord Taylor of Mansfield raised the question, quite naturally, of mining. He was concerned that the present standards may be eroded if they are taken into the Bill. As the noble Lord will know rather better than I do, this matter has been under discussion for a long time and the existing statutory standards of protection for miners will not be weakened. The noble Lord referred specifically to the requirements of the Mines and Quarries Act, and these will remain in force until they are replaced by better standards. Quite
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obviously, these better standards could not be judged to be so unless the miners agreed that they were. That is quite specific, so I hope that my noble friend will feel happy about it.
In his extremely interesting speech, my noble friend Lord Wynne-Jones was concerned, among other matters, about the specialist bodies and the disappearance of the Mines and Alkali Inspectorates. The specialist inspectorates which join the Executive will not disappear: their specialisations will continue. Unity here does not mean uniformity. As I understand it, the aim is for more specialisation and more expertise. As technology becomes more and more specialised and expert, we need more of it in order to judge it and counter-balance it. But inclusion within the new organisation will mean that this expertise can be put to the fullest use regarding common problems and can be co-ordinated with related disciplines. Integration on the various inspectorates was a fundamental recommendation of the Robens Committee and one that has been very widely supported. He will he pleased to know that inspectors will have exactly the same access to Ministers as they have at present. There is no statutory right of access under any existing legislation. My Lords, that does not seem to make sense. I have probably got it wrong.
Now may I turn to Lord Middleton's point on agriculture. I am a strictly non-agriculturalist. The wife of a keen gardener is the nearest I have got to that! I employ my husband as an unpaid gardener. I do not know whether that makes me an employer or self-employed. The noble Lord referred to the fact that there were far more employers than employees in agriculture; but I think he will agree it would be more accurate to say there were more self-employed than employees, which is really rather different. It is true that there was extensive criticism from all sides of the special provisions, but after discussions between the Secretary of State for Employment and the Minister for Agriculture, and consultations with a number of bodies, the final result came about.
What we are now proposing under the Bill, as amended on Report, gives agriculture the best of both worlds, because the

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Bill now gives the Commission full responsibility for all aspects of health and safety in agriculture, as in all other industries. The case for this is the same as the general case for having the Bill in the first place, and for setting up a single organisation solely concerned with industry-based health and safety problems with full responsibility for tackling those problems wherever they are found in manufacturing, mining, the constructing service industries and so on. We are also proposing that in the normal course the day-to-day work of carrying out the Commission's policies and enforcing the statutory requirements in agriculture should be done on the Commission's behalf to its specifications by the inspectorial resources of the Agricultural Departments.
There are powers in the Bill to create an agency arrangement of this kind and this should solve the special problem of coping with the scattered structure of the industry, since the Agricultural Department's inspectors will in any case be visiting the farms for other purposes. It also means that farms will normally be dealing with people whom they know are fully familiar with their problems. I do not suppose it will bring much comfort to the noble Lord, but, thinking that this would come up to-day, I saw a friend of mine who is a very experienced farmer of long standing, who took the contrary view and he felt now that the Bill had been amended it made far better sense and agreed that in this way agriculture got the best of both worlds.
I am conscious of not having covered every point that has been made and I am also conscious of the clock ticking on. I can only say that I and my noble friends have listened with the greatest interest to the points that have been made, and that there will be an opportunity for more discussion of some of the particular points on the Committee stage. The debate to-day has been a most valuable contribution, not only to the need for educating and informing a wider public about health and safety matters, but on the whole subject of health and safety at work, so that in future it gets the priority and attention it deserves. One of the important things about this Bill is its flexibility with its imaginative enabling content which gives it the elbow room essential for what I hope will be a human
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and social growth industry. I know that noble Lords will welcome the chance to give this Bill its Second Reading as much as we have welcomed the chance to hear what they have had to about about the Bill.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

ROYAL ASSENT
7.4 p.m.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD ELWYN-JONES): My Lords, I have to notify the House, in accordance with the Royal Assent Act 1967, that the Queen has signified her Royal Assent to the following Acts:
Lord High Commissioner (Church of Scotland) Act,
Dumping at Sea Act,
Ministers of the Crown Act,
Statute Law (Repeals) Act.

HOUSING (SCOTLAND) BILL
Brought from the Commons; read 1a, and to be printed.

ROAD TRAFFIC BILL [H.L.]
7.5 p.m.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, I have it in command from Her Majesty the Queen and His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales that they, having been informed of the purport of the Road Traffic Bill, have consented to place their prerogative and interests, so far as they are affected on behalf of the Crown, the Duchy of Lancaster and the Duchy of Cornwall, at the disposal of Parliament for the purposes of the Bill.
THE MINISTER OF STATE, HOME OFFICE (LORD HARRIS OF GREENWICH): My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a third time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 3a.—(Lord Harris of Greenwich.)
LORD JANNER: My Lords, I must apologise to the House for intervening at this time. I think that the House will appreciate—
LORD HARRIS OF GREENWICH: My Lords, I hope my noble friend will forgive me, but I think it might be a good idea at this time if I moved the Privilege Amendment. I beg to move the Privilege Amendment.
On Question, Bill read 3a, an Amendment (privilege) made.
LORD HARRIS OF GREENWICH: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill do now pass.
Moved, That the Bill do now pass.—(Lord Harris of Greenwich.)
LORD JANNER: My Lords, as the House is aware I am deeply concerned about the effects of certain clauses of this Bill in relation to powers which are exercisable at the present time by magistrates to prevent crime. I would again say at this late stage in this House that it would he a grave error to pass certain measures which would deprive the magistrates of this country of the right to be able to exercise their judgment, and to impose certain sentences which they consider appropriate to deal with these motoring offences. I realise—and the magistrates themselves realise—that it is important to refrain so far as possible from sending people to prison if it can be avoided. But as one can see from speeches which have been made here, it is perfectly clear that by removing the powers of imprisonment certain results will follow which were probably not contemplated at the time the Bill was introduced. Various custodial possibilities are being taken away in relation to attendance centres, detention centres, and so on. I shall not go through the whole story again, because it has been very carefully voiced in this House. Magistrates feel the whole object of their jurisdiction would be seriously impaired in relation to the kind of offences to which the Bill refers, and would make their task practically impossible, particularly in the juvenile court.
Let me give one illustration. The removal of the power of imprisonment would not enable the court, as I see it, as the magistrates see it and as the justices' clerks see it, to issue a warrant for a person to appear in court in respect of an offence with which he had been charged. What the position would be with regard to the endorsing of licences in such circumstances is open to question
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because the licence would not be before the court. One could not compel an accused person to bring his licence to court. I do not want at this stage to call upon the Government to make long statements or to give explanations, but this is a point which has to be carefully considered between now and the Bill's next stage in another place.
I ought to explain to your Lordships that, unfortunately, I was out of the country during the debate at the previous stage of the Bill in this House. I want to thank my noble friends who spoke in the debates on the Committee stage and the Report stage for having done so and for the admirable way in which they presented the case. I would have been prepared to remain until the early hours of the morning, when the Committee stage was on the Order Paper, but I did not think that that would be courteous to the House; nor would it have been appropriate for me to insist upon the matter going further that evening. Unfortunately, after that I had to leave the country on an important matter and I hope the House will appreciate that it was not out of any discourtesy to the House that I was not here.
The Bill will now proceed to another place. I feel that the magistrates do such splendid work and are so experienced in the work that they carry out that we cannot afford (it would be quite wrong) to disregard their views. We should only act if we are thoroughly satisfied that the contentions that they are bringing forward are unreasonable; and if there is a question of doubt at all in so far as their view is concerned, the balance should be put in their favour. They are people who do not want to impose harsh sentences. But it would be silly of us to take away from them their feeling that they are doing something to cure and remedy a position and ensure that there will be no repetition of the offences concerned.
Of course, the effect of fines being raised is sheer nonsense. It does not matter a hoot (if I may use the expression) to a man who has plenty of money whether he has to pay a fine of £20 or of £100. The person who cannot afford to pay could never be called upon to pay. I do not know how on earth we should be able to get money from a person who had been fined heavily but was not in a position to pay because his means were

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not sufficient. So, in fact, when we look at the effect of the Bill we really must see that the magistrates are justified in feeling that the object for which they undertake their duties is being frustrated.
I hope that even at this late hour—and I believe, reading some of the statements made by the Government, that they have gone a little way towards considering possible Amendments in the other place—an opportunity will be given for the magistrates and for the justices' clerks to have further consultations with the Government. I hope that the magistrates will be received in a proper way (I am not suggesting they were received in any improper way before) and that proper regard will be given to their views. They want to be of use to the country, and they actually are of considerable use to the country. I hope that when this request is answered, as I hope it will be, and these meetings take place, careful consideration and a positive reaction will be accorded to the views of the Magistrates' Association and the justices clerks' organisation. I hope that Amendments will be produced—perhaps by the Government themselves—to comply with the proposals of the magistrates and the justices' clerks. Indeed, I hope that the right which has been spoken about here quite a lot—the right of any person who is charged to apply for trial by jury—will be retained. I personally consider that that is a right of considerable importance, and certainly it should not be altered before we consider the Report which is forthcoming in respect of this issue.
I could of course repeat very many of the strong arguments that have been used. I do not want to do that. I think that everyobdy here has heard or read them time after time. I am quite sure that the Government in their heart of hearts know very well that they are dealing on these issues with responsible people, and they are responsible people themselves. These people (I hope I shall be forgiven for saying this, but I believe I am entitled to) are very much more experienced than are Ministers—I say that without any disrespect—unless the Ministers themselves have been magistrates for a considerable time. It is really necessary to give effect to their views in a matter of this kind, where experience counts for so much.
7.19 p.m.
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: My Lords, I shall detain your Lordships for only one or two minutes. I do not want to follow the noble Lord, Lord Janner, in his arguments. I know that he passionately and sincerely feels the strength of them. There are one or two noble Lords on this side of the House who are magistrates who feel as the noble Lord does. I know that friends on this side, learned and right honourable, when in Government took the same view as the noble Lord the Minister and his Government on this point. It is a matter of sincere principles in what we are trying to do. We want to keep the prison population down just as noble Lords opposite want to. That has been argued with regard to our Bill last year; it has been argued on this Bill this year. However, I am speaking merely to thank the noble Lords. Lord Harris of Greenwich. Lord Garnsworthy and also Lord Wells-Pestell who helped on this Bill.
I hope that on this Bill we shall not have a repetition of what happened to our old friend, the Conservation of Seals Bill. I was given my first important task on the Front Bench in Opposition of looking after the Conservation of Seals Bill and the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, as Leader of the Party and Leader of the Government, added lustre to it by dealing with it for the Government. My noble friend Lord Cranbrook introduced it. For three years running it was introduced and for three years running it got lost. After three years I got to know the subject fairly well. This is the second time round for the Road Traffic Bill. It has a useful purpose to perform and I hope that something called "an election" will not interfere to disturb the natural, calm passage of the Bill through another place.
My Lords, with those words, may I thank the noble Lords for their helpfulness. We have had a very good debate and the points at issue have been well debated. Even the noble Lord, Lord Janner, would agree, I think, that all the points have been discussed. He will not, I know, agree with all that has been said. However, I think it is agreed that this is a useful Bill. I hope that it will go through, but if it does not, we shall meet again and we shall be able to repeat our phrases.
7.22 p.m.
LORD HARRIS OF GREENWICH: My Lords, may I deal first with the points raised by my noble friend Lord Janner. I am sure that the House is sorry that we were deprived of his guidance during the discussion of the issues which he has raised this evening. I know how strongly my noble friend feels about this particular issue. However, I may be able to reassure him on one point, although I suspect not on the other. The Government will always be prepared to talk to the Magistrates' Association or the Justices' Clerks Society on this or any other issue. I share his view entirely that they are an important and responsible group of people with substantial experience of the administration of the criminal law. On the other hand, the Government, like their predecessors, are determined to reduce substantially the number of people who, in our judgment, are sent to prison unnecessarily for offences under the Road Traffic Act.
We will be prepared to talk to the Magistrates' Association and the Justices' Clerks Society, but nobody should have any misunderstanding about this point. Our position was made clear by my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor during the debate which we had 48 hours ago, and it would only be misleading these two important groups of people if I suggested that on the central question of principle there was any likelihood that the Government would move their position. On the other hand, on peripheral questions dealing with the endorsement of licences and matters of the sort raised by my noble friend Lady Wootton, we shall be prepared to look at the matter again, either with these two bodies or with others.
Apart from that, may I thank the noble Lord who has just sat down. Like the noble Lord, I hope that we shall soon see this Bill on the Statute Book. I say that without any political overtones; I think that is the safest way of putting it. I thank him and his noble friend Lord Aberdare for the helpful and constructive role which they have both played during the passage of this Bill. I thank particularly my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor. I do that
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with particular feeling, because on the two issues upon which he addressed your Lordships he managed to persuade the majority of your Lordships that the Government were right. Next, may I thank my noble friend Lord Wells-Pestell, and, thirdly and particularly, my noble friend Lord Garnsworthy, who has carried the bulk of the work on this Bill as spokesman for the Department of the Environment. It is not only a question of speaking in this House but also of carrying out a substantial amount of correspondence with a number of your Lordships upon all the particular matters and issues raised in the debate.
LORD JANNER: My Lords, before my noble friend sits down, I want him to realise that what I have been saying does not mean that I do not agree with many Parts of the Bill. On the contrary, I think that the Bill is a very good Bill. However, I do not want this to be the rotten apple in the barrel.
On Question, Bill passed, and sent to the Commons.

MORPETH COMMON BILL
Reported without amendment.

PORTLAND DEEPWATER QUAYS BILL [H.L.]
Report from the Select Committee, That the Committee are of opinion that it is not expedient to proceed further with the Bill; and that the Committee are further of opinion that the Petitioners have been unreasonably subjected to expense by the Promoters of the Bill and are therefore entitled to recover from the Promoters 25 per centum of the costs incurred by them in respect of their opposition to the Bill in this House, such costs to be taxed and certified by the Taxing Officer of this House.
House adjourned at twenty-five minutes past seven o'clock.