Health Protection Agency

Baroness Turner of Camden Excerpts

Thursday 7th October 2010 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My noble friend makes a good point about communications. Indeed, the idea of creating a public health service is to have in the Department of Health a joined-up means of having advice, surveillance, training and planning that will then feed out to local authorities, which will be responsible for prioritising action on the ground. An essential part of that will be to get the communications right.

[Baroness Turner of Camden]

My Lords, can we have an assurance from the Minister that health and safety at work will be protected? Some industries—the construction industry is one such industry—have high levels of industrial injury and, of course, it is a human right not to suffer injury, or indeed death, while at work.

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, as the noble Baroness will know with her long experience, health and safety at work is a cornerstone of good industrial policy. Certainly, I am not aware of any plans of my department to affect the strength and force of current health and safety rules.