The Minister of State, Department for Education (Mr Nick Gibb)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery) on securing this important debate. I know that he is passionate about this subject, having campaigned for victims of asbestos-related lung conditions and pleural plaques in the north-east and in his role as secretary of the all-party parliamentary group on health and safety. I have read its report, “Asbestos in Schools: the need for action”, very carefully.
The priority for this Government, as for the previous Government, is to ensure the safety of staff and pupils in schools. The report is welcome in raising awareness of the asbestos issue and makes several important recommendations, which I will address, as I will the hon. Gentleman’s questions. The Government’s policy remains consistent with that of the previous Administration. The Health and Safety Executive advice is clear. If asbestos is in good condition and not disturbed or damaged, it is safer to leave and manage it in place than to remove it. In the view of the HSE, removing it would involve a far greater risk to school children, staff and contractors than managing it until the eventual demolition of the building.
The Department for Education and the HSE are proactive in promoting good asbestos management in schools. To oversee this important work, my noble Friend Lord Hill, the Under-Secretary of State with responsibility for schools, established the asbestos in schools steering group, which is chaired by the Department and has a membership that includes my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke), trade unions, campaigners, the HSE and Partnership for Schools.
Under the Control of Asbestos Regulations 2006, responsibility for complying with asbestos legislation lies with those responsible for the maintenance or repair of non-domestic premises. For most state schools that will be the local authority, not the school itself, but where budgets for building management are delegated to schools by the local authority, the duty—as it is called—to manage asbestos will be shared between schools and the local authority.
Ian Lavery
Will the hon. Gentleman explain what would happen with the newly introduced free schools? Who would be responsible for the management plan and for ridding those schools of asbestos?
Mr Gibb
The duty to manage is the duty of the employer. In academies and free schools, that would be either the governing body or the academy trust. However, I will write to the hon. Gentleman shortly to ensure that I am correct on the technical question of who, precisely, is the employer in those circumstances.
There is a need for head teachers and governors to be aware of their responsibilities when commissioning building or maintenance work. Duty holders should have already taken steps to identify whether asbestos is present in their buildings and assessed the condition of the asbestos, and should have access to records of that information. The duty holder also needs to assess and manage risks to ensure that people are not exposed to asbestos fibres. If the asbestos-containing material is deteriorating or subject to damage, remedial measures will be required. The HSE guidance on the 2006 regulations gives schools clear procedures to follow in assessing the risk from asbestos. The guidance requires assessment of the location, type and condition of the asbestos-containing material, and it is the duty of schools and local authorities to take the appropriate measures.
The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, my right hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling), who has responsibility for employment, has set out the Government’s plans for reform of the health and safety system in Britain in the document “Good Health and Safety, Good for Everyone”. The proposals make it clear that there is a need to focus attention on the highest risks. As a result, the HSE will not routinely inspect local authority-maintained schools. However, managing asbestos needs effective and ongoing attention from duty holders. The HSE’s recent inspection initiatives of schools under local authority control and those outside it, to which the hon. Gentleman referred, found that the majority were adequately managing asbestos, but a proportion fell below acceptable standards. The findings of those inspections have been published, so that all schools can review their asbestos management in areas where common weaknesses were identified. The HSE is also gathering intelligence to see whether further inspections of schools are necessary. If so, the HSE will monitor the duty to manage asbestos requirements through a series of inspections in 2013-14 to ensure that the HSE’s guidance and the findings of its recent inspection initiatives are properly implemented.
Jim Sheridan (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (Lab)
Very briefly, what proportion of schools fell below the standards?
Mr Gibb
I do not know the proportion that fell below the acceptable standards, but I will write to the hon. Gentleman shortly with the precise figure from the HSE.
Everyone in the education sector has a role to play in raising and maintaining awareness. Where duty holders fall below acceptable standards, HSE inspectors will continue to take action, and they have robust procedures in place to enforce regulations. The Department and the HSE have put in place clear guidance for schools and local authorities to help them identify and manage the risks posed by asbestos. We are currently producing an asbestos awareness training website, containing online training packages for head teachers and governors, and teaching and support staff, as well as premises and caretaking staff. In addition to training, the website will allow schools and local authorities to share good practice and documentation on asbestos management. The head teacher’s course is undergoing trials and will be released later this year. We do not propose to make the training mandatory, as we do not want to impose one particular model where good practice may already be in place.
Another recommendation in the report, to which the hon. Member for Wansbeck referred, was that data about the extent, type and condition of asbestos should be collected by central Government. There is a need to maintain a register of asbestos surveys at local authority level, but we do not see the need for a national register of asbestos surveys of public buildings in England and Wales. It would result in the unnecessary duplication of the records that local authorities and other employers are required by law to keep, and the need to maintain two sets of identical data would increase bureaucracy.
Another recommendation in the report was that a system should be introduced so that parents and school staff could be regularly informed about the presence of asbestos and how it was being managed. A similar system is in place in the United States. We encourage a policy of openness, but it is for duty holders to determine which information to share with parents.
On the issue of proactively removing all asbestos, the HSE’s advice is clear. Removing all asbestos when a risk assessment has determined that that is not necessary is considered more dangerous to those removing it and to the building’s occupants than leaving it undisturbed. If the control of asbestos regulations are followed and asbestos surveys and management plans are put into effect, with periodic checks on the condition of any asbestos, the expert advice is that this will result in no significant exposure to asbestos.
The Government take very seriously the issue of managing the problem of asbestos in our schools. As the all-party group’s report makes clear, the majority of schools contain asbestos-containing materials, as do many other buildings, both domestic and non-domestic. The asbestos in schools steering group, established by my noble Friend Lord Hill, has asked the committee on carcinogenicity of chemicals in food, consumer products and the environment to look into the relative vulnerability of children to even low-level exposure to asbestos fibres. I have taken on board the hon. Gentleman’s point about the exposure of children to asbestos. This will be the first such assessment, as previous assessments have been for adults exposed to high exposure levels. We will review our policy on asbestos management and our advice to schools when we receive the committee’s report later this year.
I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising this issue. I hope that he will be reassured that the Government are taking it very seriously. As previous Governments have done, we are following the expert advice of the Health and Safety Executive in formulating policy and managing safely the asbestos in school buildings.
Question put and agreed to.