Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015

Debate between Lord Bishop of Chester and Lord Stevenson of Balmacara

Thursday 26th March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare an interest that my wife is a practising lawyer who deals with construction contracts.

I should make it clear that we support the important work that the HSE does and we are obviously very keen to do what we can to support it and further improve the safety record of the construction industry. As the Olympics project showed, we can and do undertake major projects without fatalities, but 45 fatalities a year in the sector is too many and too high a price to pay.

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Freud, for agreeing to take this short debate at unreasonably short notice, which is entirely my fault. I want to use the opportunity to invite him to respond to a couple of points raised by the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, which I think will be helpful in getting the message out about the changes that are being made.

I understand that the HSE policy objectives with these regulations are, according to its own documentation, to:

“Maintain or improve worker protection … Simplify the regulatory package … Improve health and safety standards on small construction sites … Discourage bureaucracy … Meet better regulation principles”.

Of course, we support all those laudable objectives.

My first point relates to the inclusion from 6 April of all domestic construction within the scope of the CDM regulations. These are negative regulations, which stem from powers in the 1992 EU directive. The Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee notes that the 2015 regulations remove the exemption previously given under the 2007 regulations to domestic home owners—what the committee calls “domestic clients”. The point is made that the way in which the regulations are framed and the Explanatory Memorandum rather conceal the fact that it is slightly unusual to make this major change, involving quite a large number of people across the country—who are going to be brought for the first time into a regulatory structure which, after all, has criminal penalties when things go wrong—through the negative procedure, which means that of course Parliament has no opportunity directly to discuss it, other than through this sort of format. The noble Lord may feel that I am being unnecessarily bureaucratic in that—perish the thought—but I wonder whether he might reflect on the possibility that a change of this order might better have been done either by primary legislation or through an affirmative resolution, which would have given us a chance to discuss it.

In some sense, there is no need to panic. However, I left in my house this morning two tradesmen—who amazingly turned up on time—doing some work; one a joiner and one a plumber. Long may they continue to work there and I hope that they are still there when I get back. The point I make is that I left them without any requirement to enforce any form of regulatory environment because my house, being a domestic premise, is excluded from the arrangements. However, it occurred to me as I left that, after 6 April, the situation will have changed.

Will the situation have changed or will it not? I think that it will have changed. Persons who are currently excluded under the regulations will be included; for example, all householders and anybody involving themselves with domestic work on their premises. The reason it may not have an impact, as I am sure the Minister will come on to, is that the approach taken by the HSE in dealing with the very large number of additional persons concerned with the CDM regulations is that they will be deemed to have had a process undertaken under which the responsibilities that they would have accepted under the regulations have been deemed to have been passed to the contractor. Whether the contractor knows that or not is another matter. The issue—one should be quite open about this—is that the requirements on the client which apply in commercial situations are mainly ones of organisation, notification and information, and therefore are not onerous. It would be, in ordinary parlance, quite acceptable to expect that a competent contractor would understand the issues that are raised by taking on a domestic contract and would be expected to undertake the deemed responsibilities that are going across. We arrive, as the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee says, in a not unreasonable place.

I have a slight worry, however, and wonder whether the Minister might respond to this. Whereas before, 23 million or so households were excluded, they are now included, and I am not quite sure why that has happened and would be grateful if he could explain why we should not be concerned about that.

The second point I want to raise is a sector-specific concern. The Minister will be aware of the considerable concerns expressed by the creative industries and the entertainment sector. The argument is made that the creative industries engage in the construction of temporary demountable structures—for ease, I will call them TDS—which are a small but integrated part of their normal production processes and mainly involve the building of theatre and TV or film sets and the erection of marquee structures and stands within conference facilities. It is well understood within the sector that the construction of a new studio or a permanent production facility falls within the directive and should therefore be considered within the CDM 2015 regulations. However, the sector does not apply the CDM regulations to smaller scale, very temporary works and relies on a well understood risk management process and procedures that are deemed proportionate and suitable to manage the risks arising from these activities. The sector argues that it has a good safety track record and good risk management processes in place. The point at issue is that the HSE, on reviewing the situation, has decided that the CDM regulations must be applied to the construction of all temporary dismountable structures, regardless of size, scope or scale. The HSE has argued that it has no discretion on this because the UK has obligations under the EU directive. That directive is the 1992 EU directive and has not changed, so why is this happening? It would be interesting if the Minister could explain why there has been an alteration in this.

I would like to end by saying that the Minister is, I think, aware that the sector has been in quite detailed correspondence and meetings with the HSE. Indeed, I have a copy of a letter, dated 19 March, from the chairman to Pact, one of the leading bodies in the sector, acting on behalf of many of the companies involved. In the letter, the chairman says that she understands the sector’s concerns and the strength of feeling that underpins them—she certainly would not be able to miss it because there has been quite vigorous correspondence, I understand. She goes on to say, and this is the point that I want the Minister to respond to, that she shares the sector’s,

“unease about how this Directive, which fits well with mainstream construction work, is interpreted by those for whom construction work is only a small and occasional part of their business”.

In other words, she seems to be saying that she rather agrees with the sector that maybe it is not proportionate to require the CDM regulations in their full force to be applied to temporary structures, particularly film sets and the like.

We are in a bit of an odd situation here. On the one hand, the HSE is certain that it has no discretion and that the regulations have to be applied. On the other hand, it says that it sympathises with those who are concerned about having to implement the full process. They cannot both be right, so I hope that the Minister will give his interpretation. We have uncertainty looming on 6 April. Uncertainty is clearly not good for safety, and it would be great if the Minister could make a statement which reassured all the sectors concerned. I beg to move.

[The Lord Bishop of Chester]

My Lords, I have just one brief question for the Minister on the regulations. Paragraph 20 of the impact assessment refers to financial impact. It states that the deemed approach—which is much the better one, I am sure—will cost £1.3 million to homeowners and £4.6 million to contractors. All my experience is that costs to contractors get handed on to the people for whom they are providing their services, so how do we know that the £4.6 million will not simply be handed on to the homeowners to whom the services are being provided? How can one make that distinction?

Gambling (Licensing and Advertising) Bill

Debate between Lord Bishop of Chester and Lord Stevenson of Balmacara

Tuesday 4th March 2014 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Chester]

My Lords, I associate myself very closely with the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Browne, and that of the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, so I will not repeat the points they made. Noble Lords will realise that it is quite rare for Members from this Bench to quote the scriptures. For understandable reasons we are a bit coy about doing that. However, I cannot avoid going to a verse from the First Epistle to Timothy, which says that,

“the love of money is the root of all evil”.

There is great truth in that. The lure and attraction of wealth so often lies behind the person who turns gambling from an innocent pastime into an obsession, an addiction or whatever. A responsible society has to do what it can to protect people against these false gods and false goals. When you get into the digital world, you simply raise the stakes, to use a gambling analogy. If I am a problem gambler and I have to walk down to the betting shop in Chester, there is a natural restraint—there may be only two or three people there and they will wonder what I am doing when I walk through the door. But if those restraints are taken away, you have to be cognisant of the potential dangers.

I often think that we are now, in the digital age, in a digital version of the wild west, where there was all the excitement and discovery and all the positive aspects in America when it opened up, but the reality of law and order had to come in later. We must provide proper protection to people in the online world.

I shall briefly refer to a completely different area that concerns me very greatly—the way in which the internet is used in relation to pornography. The noble Baroness, Lady Howe, has talked about this on previous occasions. I have had a particular problem with two or three clergy in my diocese who have innocently thought that accessing child pornography on the internet was somehow not as serious as interfering directly with an actual human being. Of course, the law quite properly says that accessing child pornography on the internet is to be complicit in the actual original abuse. People have that sort of innocent view of the internet so often. The more checks and balances that we can introduce, the better.

If the net effect of this Bill is that the advertising of online gambling is much more in our face and much more prevalent, it behoves us to put in place what protections we can. I warmly support the amendment.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Browne, for introducing the amendment. We are also signed up to it. The noble Lord spoke at length about the issues that he wanted to raise, building on the meeting that he kindly organised, at which I was also present. I endorse what has been said by other noble Lords who were there, including the noble Lord, Lord Phillips.

The interesting thing about gambling, to me, coming to it relatively unskilled in this area, is that it is one of those areas about which we make a set of assumptions when we approach it, then we discover as we get closer to it that they do not stand up. For example, one thinks of addiction very much in terms of what substance people are taking that has a chemical effect on their body which makes them addicted. But with gambling, all the signs, evidence and research suggest that we are dealing with addictive activity, but there is no physical substance. Of course, it may well be, as the right reverend Prelate was saying, that something about the internet has a way of interacting with our neurons and has an effect that we do not yet fully understand. There is absolutely no doubt, from the reading that I have done for these debates, and from the evidence that we heard at that powerful meeting, that we are talking about something really rather serious and deep-seated worries should flow from that. It is not that the problem is extremely widespread—it is not—but the numbers are still significant. If we are talking about 450,000 people in our society, of course, we as a responsible society should take action to try to help them.

The situation, as I understand it, is that the regulatory position is very clear. There has to be a process for self-exclusion, because it is recognised that it is a helpful way to do it. It may not be the only way to get people away from gambling and it may not be sufficient on its own, but at least—as long as the evidence is there that it is helpful—we must make sure that the regulatory framework supports it. It is obviously right that, for those who obtain a licence to operate in current systems, and in future systems envisaged by this Bill, we need to see the self-exclusion procedures in place. I do not think any of us would be against that, but I have a problem in understanding why it is sufficient for the Government to argue that simply having a voluntary scheme operated by those who perpetrate the harm is sufficient in this case. The evidence that we have—and the very moving testimony that we have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Browne—suggests that those affected by this, those who are addicted and those who are trying to help, say that simply having the mechanism available on a case-by-case basis, on every website that they go to, as it may be regulated in future, and therefore having available the ability to self-exclude, is not sufficient.

If it is not sufficient, what system can we put in place to make sure that it works? Again, the evidence shows that the detailed proposal of the noble Lord, Lord Browne, seems to work for those with whom we have been in touch. Therefore, it seems to me a bit perverse for the Government to continue to say that they do not think that any further action is required in this regard. But what are they saying? I hope that when the noble Baroness responds, she will try to tease out the wording in the letter that we received yesterday from the Minister, which states:

“But this issue is not standing still: the Gambling Commission has indicated that it will be reviewing the self-exclusion provisions as part of a wider exercise to strengthen player protection, with the aim of significant progress within six months towards the establishment of a national remote gambling exclusion scheme”.

That text is not in capitals; I capitalised it as I said it.

That seems to suggest that there is at least the option of having something that will meet the criterion emerging from this evening’s debate—namely, that there must be something that will work for those people who are addicted. It must be something that does not mean they are constantly coming across additional websites which are not part of the scheme. It should, if possible, work with areas that are not yet regulated, although I understand that will be difficult. Certainly, if it were possible to keep open the proposal of the noble Lord, Lord Browne, until such time as the review is completed, that would help us a lot in dealing with the issue behind this amendment.

We are not saying that that is the only way in which this issue can be tackled. However, given what we have heard today and at meetings, I am certainly persuaded that this is something which works. Therefore, if it does the trick, we should keep it in play until such time as all the evidence is available.

It is becoming a theme of our discussions today that we are offering the Minister the chance to get this right at the next pass. My noble friend Lady Jones was a bit nervous about the issue of the watershed and I have my concerns about this big and important matter. As a responsible society, we should take action in this regard. The noble Baroness will say, when she responds, that there is a review and will ask why we should anticipate it. I understand that, but I hope she will recognise that we will want to come back to this issue if satisfactory progress is not made. I support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Browne, and the very powerful speeches made tonight on this matter. I hope to hear some good news from the noble Baroness when she responds.