Amosite Asbestos (Hansard, 31 January 1994)

§ Mr. Malcolm Bruce
To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if he will list previous changes in Health and Safety Executive guidelines on the level of brown amosite asbestos considered to be safe.

§ Mr. Michael Forsyth
The Health and Safety Executive has not issued specific guidelines on the level of amosite which is considered safe; a safe level of exposure to any type of asbestos has yet to be identified. However, there is a practical level of exposure below which an increased risk of contracting an asbestos-related disease cannot be detected.
The guidelines which have applied to workplace exposure to amosite are listed in the table. These standards were used by Her Majesty's inspectors of factories to establish whether satisfacory control had been achieved under the Asbestos Regulations 1969. The exposure standards are expressed as fibres per millilitre of air averaged over a continuous period of four hours and were:

(a) 2 fibres per millilitre with effect from May 1970,

(b) 0.5 fibres per millilitre with effect from 1 January 1983,

(c) 0.2 fibres per millilitre with effect from 1 August 1984.

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§ Mr. Michael Forsyth
Information given to the Department under the redundancy handling provisions of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 is provided in confidence.

§ Mr. Donohoe
To ask the Secretary of State for Employment how many vacancies were listed in(a) Irvine jobcentre and (b) Kilwinning jobcentre during December; and what was the nature of these vacancies.

§ Mr. Michael Forsyth
Responsibility for the subject of the question has been delegated to the Employment Service agency under its chief executive. I have asked him to arrange for a reply to be given.
Letter from M. E. G. Fogden to Mr. Brian Donohoe, dated 31 January 1994:
The Secretary of State has asked me to reply to your question about the number of vacancies listed in Irvine and Kilwinning Jobcentres in December.
I attach a table showing the notified vacancies for both offices.
Vacancies notified to Jobcentres are displayed in the self-service area of the office for selection by job seekers. This display will also include suitable vacancies from Jobcentres in the surrounding area. I have therefore included in the table the average number of vacancies on display in Irvine and Kilwinning Jobcentres in December 1993.
You asked for information about the nature of the vacancies which were notified and the table gives a breakdown according to whether they were permanent or temporary, full-time or part-time. Because this was the Christmas period the number of temporary vacancies notified was high.
You may also be interested to know that during December Irvine Jobcentre found jobs for 219 people and Kilwinning Jobcentre for 44 people.
I hope this is helpful.
The value of 0.2 fibres per millilitre of air became the statutory control limit for amosite, on the advice of the Health and Safety Commission, when the Control of Asbestos at Work Regulations 1987 came into effect on 1 March 1988.