Work-related Stress (Hansard, 22 October 2002)

§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Baroness Hollis of Heigham)
My Lords, the Health and Safety Commission has identified work-related stress as a priority programme in achieving its PSA targets. The commission has commissioned considerable research—for example, on the impact on work performance—and the HSE has published new guidance and last week launched a new website that gives practical information and which will help to share best practice on measures that work. It is a 10-year programme and it is designed to change workplace culture and to ensure that all aspects; of employees' welfare are taken seriously.

§ Baroness Gibson of Market Rasen
My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that helpful reply. Is she aware that last week, which was the European health and safety week, the Andrea Adams Trust (of which I am president), Amicus (of which I am a member) and the Work Foundation launched a new initiative on bullying at work? Does she agree that bullying is one of the great concerns affecting working people and that it causes stress for them?

§ Baroness Hollis of Heigham
Yes, my Lords, I am indeed aware of and welcome that initiative. Bullying and harassment have no place in today s work environment and are unacceptable wherever they occur. Employees should be able to work without fear of bullying from employers—or, indeed, from anyone else. As noble Lords will be aware, the Government take that seriously. We made a manifesto commitment in 2001 to work with managers and employees to tackle the problem. As a result, the Health and Safety Executive is constructing management standards and is in the process of forming an advisory committee to feed into that work, which we hope will be in place by 2004–05.

§ Lord Bradshaw
My Lords, does the Minister agree that what some people call stress others describe: as stimulation? There is a gradient between the two. Will she give an assurance that before the Health and Safety Executive makes any fresh regulations, in this or other fields, it will undertake a cost-benefit analysis of what the regulations will cost and what burdens will be placed on employers?

§ Baroness Hollis of Heigham
My Lords, I certainly accept that the response to stress may very well vary 1217 with the personality of individuals; that is obviously assumed. Stress may range from violence at work from clients and bullying and harassment to physical problems associated with noise and vibration, unfortunate and inadequate supervision and inappropriate prioritising of work. Those are real issues that can and often do translate into physical illness. For example, we know from the 1990s Finnish study on cardiovascular mortality—the figures date from 1973 onwards—that those who experience work-related stress are twice as likely to die of heart disease. It can also lead to stomach upsets, fatigue and headaches as well as to serious mental health problems. While the noble Lord is right to suggest that people's capacity to cope with stress may vary, none the less employers have a responsibility to ensure that the workplace does not make employees ill.

§ Lord Campbell of Alloway
My Lords—

§ Baroness Finlay of Llandaff
My Lords—

§ Baroness Gould of Potternewton
My Lords, does my noble friend agree—

§ Lord Campbell of Alloway
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for giving way. Having listened with rapt attention to the Minister, does she agree that it appears that we shall have to try to define stress before we start a regulation?

§ Baroness Hollis of Heigham
My Lords, the noble Lord is absolutely right. That is why the Health and Safety Executive has defined stress as an adverse reaction to excessive pressures. In its recent literature to employers it spelt out what those pressures might include, such as increased workload, lack of management support and some of the issues that I identified in response to the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, including bullying, the lack of a proper job description and unmanaged change. We are trying not to place burdens on business or to introduce excessive regulation but to change a workplace culture in order to improve performance, job satisfaction and therefore productivity.

§ Baroness Gould of Potternewton
My Lords, does my noble friend agree that apart from the areas that she has already outlined in relation to stress, a key factor must be increasing national competitiveness and welfare at work, when one considers that the cost to the British economy is more than £3 billion a year?

§ Baroness Hollis of Heigham
My Lords, my noble friend is absolutely right. Coming new to this field, I was startled by the figures. The latest statistics that I have are for 1995, when 19.5 million days were lost to sickness from work, and one-third of them—6.5 million days—were lost to stress-related complaints and illnesses. I emphasise that one-third of all days taken for sickness from work were related to stress. 1218 The cost to employers, as my noble friend said, is in the order of one-third of a billion pounds and to society nearly £4 billion a year.

§ Baroness Finlay of Llandaff
My Lords—

§ Baroness Sharples
My Lords—

Noble Lords
Cross Bench!

§ Baroness Finlay of Llandaff
My Lords, I appreciate the Minister's definition of stress but I refer her to the paper that defines stress as a sense of lack of control over one's own destiny; she referred to that paper, which showed higher mortality. Will she explain how the Health and Safety Executive might change attitudes not only in the workplace but across the whole of society to ensure that people have a greater sense of control over their own destiny? Much stress occurs not only in employment—it relates to a sense of a lack of control outside employment.

§ Baroness Hollis of Heigham
My Lords, the noble Baroness is right in so far as she goes, but the lack of control over one's working conditions is only one component of stress. Some people may prefer a structured environment with clear directions about what to do. I believe that stress is an interplay between the pressures of the workplace and the personality that someone brings to it. Good employers can help to produce a culture that is beneficial not only to the individual but also to the business because it increases productivity, reduces absenteeism, improves turnover and reduces sickness. I am sure that we are all looking for that outcome.

§ Baroness Sharples
My Lords, is the Minister aware that yesterday I went to have a medical check-up, which is now available to noble Lords as well as to Members of the Commons? One of the points that was accentuated was whether one suffered stress in your Lordships' House!

§ Baroness Hollis of Heigham
My Lords, I believe that that would depend on which political party one belongs to.

§ Lord Addington
My Lords, does the Minister agree that, as a result of the Government's many initiatives to get people who have been excluded from work back into work—many of those people are disabled—stress will occur in new areas? Are the Government seeking to ensure that those people will be able to talk to their employers about stress and that employers will be given guidance on how to understand those new areas of stress?

§ Baroness Hollis of Heigham
My Lords, I am sure that that is right. When employers ask the HSE how best to reduce stress in the workplace, one of its recommendations—apart from having proper grievance procedures and so on—is to interview people on a one-to-one basis when they return from 1219 sickness-related absence to establish how stress can be reduced in future. I am glad that the noble Lord emphasised that mental illness can be created by stress and that the physical conditions that may follow can be as much of an impairment or disability as a physical illness.

Lord Berkeley
My Lords, is my noble friend aware that the Health and Safety Commission required that when the new line between Stirling and Alloway opens, the operating procedures will be to have two signalmen on one shift to process five trains because one signalman cannot pull the levers and deal with the computer? Surely the only stress that those people will suffer will be boredom.

§ Baroness Hollis of Heigham
My Lords, I am sure that my noble friend will understand if I pass on the specifics of that question. I agree with noble Lords who suggested that if there is one thing worse than over-pressure at work; it is the absence of work altogether.