§ Mr. Norman Hoggasked the Secretary of State for Employment if steps are taken to ensure that Her Majesty's 60W inspectors of health and safety are aware of the trade names of dyes and colours in use in industry in Britain which have the known potential to cause cancer of the bladder in workers using such dyes and colours; and what is the total number and the chemical types of such dyes and colours.
§ Mr. Peter BottomleyThe Health and Safety Executive is not aware of any dyes or colours in use in industry in Britain that have a known proven potential to cause cancer of the bladder in workers using them, though suspicions have arisen from time to time about particular groups of dyes or individual dyes and it has not been possible positively to disprove the existence of a risk of bladder cancer among exposed workers.
In particular, suspicion has fallen on dyes produced from benzidine. In the past, these may have contained some free benzidine as an impurity, but the concentrations of this substance have now been reduced to very low levels. Following discussions by the Health and Safety Commission's advisory committee on toxic substances, the Health and Safety Executive issued a guidance note in 1982, "Benzidine-based Dyes — Health and Safety Precautions".
§ Mr. Norman Hoggasked the Secretary of State for Employment what progress has been made towards ratification of the International Labour Conference occupational cancer convention, 1974 (No. 139), for the control of all cancer-causing substances at work; and what information he has as to which member states have already ratified the convention; and in which year this was accomplished in each case.
§ Mr. Peter BottomleyIn January 1984, following the consideration by the Health and Safety Commissioner's advisory committee on toxic substances of draft regulations together with a general approved code of practice and a supplementary code of practice produced by a working party on the control of carcinogens, ACTS recommended to the HSC that a draft consultative document should be published for comment. The consultative document was published for comment. The consultative document was published in August and the consultation period ends on 1 March, 1985.
Following the consultation period, I expect that some further work will be needed before the regulations can be put by the HSC to the Government for approval; once the new regulations have been approved I hope that the Government will be in a position to ratify IL convention No. 139.
The information about ratifications of the convention is shown in the table.
61W
States Year in which ratification was registered Afghanistan 1979 Argentina 1978 Denmark 1978 Ecuador 1975 Egypt 1982 Finland 1977 Federal Republic of Germany 1976 Guinea 1976 Guyana 1983 Hungary 1975 Iraq 1978
States Year in which ratification was registered Italy 1981 Japan 1977 Nicaragua 1981 Norway 1977 Peru 1976 Sweden 1976 Switzerland 1976 Syrian Arab Republic 1979 Uruguay 1980 Venezuela 1983 Yugoslavia 1977