HC Deb 03 March 1994 vol 238 cc862-3W
Mr. Austin Mitchell

To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if he will publish a table showing the number of full-time(a) male and (b) female employees in 1968, 1973, 1979, 1989 and 1993 in numbers and as a percentage of the population of adult working age in each case.

Miss Widdecombe

The available information is given in the following table:

Mr. Parry

To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what was the estimated cost of occupational ill-health in the construction industry during 1993.

Mr. Michael Forsyth

No estimates are available of the specific cost of occupational ill health in the construction industry during 1993. However, a recent study by the Health and Safety Executive shows that in recent years there has been a dramatic increase in the direct cost to employers of work-related ill health in Great Britain.

Mr. Parry

To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what progress has been made in the last five years in reducing the. accident level in the construction industry.

Mr. Michael Forsyth

Both the numbers and rates of injuries to employees have continued to fall over the last five years; the trend for every category of injury and for each year is downwards, more sharply in the last two years. Injury rates among the self-employed are also improving, the last three years' figures being generally lower than at the end of the 1980s.

Mr. Parry

To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what representations he has received from the Health and Safety Executive regarding predictable and preventable construction fatalities that were directly a result of negligent employers breaking health and safety laws.

Mr. Michael Forsyth

The Health and Safety Executive has periodically briefed Ministers on the preventable nature of construction industries and the need to improve health and safety management in the industry. With this objective I expect shortly to receive proposals from the Health and Safety Commission for new Construction (Design and Management) Regulations.

Mr. Parry

To ask the Secretary of State for Employment how many people over the past five years have died in the construction industry due to accidents on site and industrial-related diseases.

Mr. Michael Forsyth

The hon. Member will have the Health and Safety Commission's 1992–93 annual report, published last November, tables 2, 3 and 4 of which contain the detailed injury figures. Figures for work-related ill health in construction or any other industry are not generally available due to the difficulty in relating deaths to possible fatal exposures occurring years before. However, for the five-year period 1987 and 1991, about 20 per cent. of the people whose death certificates mentioned mesothelioma as a cause of death had a last full-time occupation in the construction industry.