§ Mr. Gryllsasked the Secretary of State for Employment whether he has any proposals to facilitate the Health and Safety Executive's enforcement of the Health and Safety at Work, etc Act within Government establishments; and if he will make a statement on his attitude to Sir James Howie's working party on improving safety in Government laboratories.
§ Mr. John GrantThe Health and Safety Commission has expressed to me and other Ministers its view that Crown bodies should be subject to the same sanctions, including the use of enforcement notices and prosecution, as other employers. As I explained in reply to a Question by the hon. Member for Galloway (Mr. Thompson), the Commission has been asked to prepare, for further ministerial consideration, a paper setting out the sorts of difficulty that have been met or that are foreseen in dealing with Crown bodies under the Act.
Meanwhile, the Commission has decided that the executive should introduce forms of notice to be issued to Crown establishments in instances in which its inspections reveal circumstances that would, in relation to non-Crown establishments, call for the issue of statutory improvement or prohibition notices. This will enable the action taken by the Health and Safety Executive in relation to Crown establishments to be as similar as possible to that taken elsewhere.
380WThe report of Sir James Howie's working party, on which the Health and Safety Executive was represented by an observer, embodies a draft code of practice for the prevention of infection in clinical laboratories. This code is at present under discussion and it will be a matter for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services to determine the action which should be taken to implement it and the other recommendations in the report.