Health and Safety: Common Sense Common Safety

Lord Freud Excerpts

Thursday 25th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Lord Freud)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Young, on his work in investigating the concerns about the perception and application of health and safety legislation, together with the rise of the so-called compensation culture, resulting in the report that we have been debating this afternoon, Common Sense Common Safety. This report has been widely welcomed and is fully supported by the Government as a turning point for health and safety. I also congratulate my noble friend Lord Faulks on his admirable maiden speech. I can expect to see this Chamber adopt the position of an old folks’ home if he continues in that vein.

Today’s debate has given the House an opportunity to discuss the operation of health and safety laws, and we have had a debate of great quality from many noble Lords. Interestingly, there has been general support—not unanimous support—for the report of the noble Lord, Lord Young. I can assure noble Lords that the Government are fully supportive of the report and individual departments are making progress in implementing the proposals. The great majority of them are included in departments’ published structural reform plans. Picking up the point from the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, about the need for a champion, I think the fact that these recommendations are now embedded reduces that need significantly. A small number of the recommendations do not fit neatly into a single government department’s purview and the review implementation team is currently working with the relevant government departments to ensure that these recommendations also are taken forward.

I particularly want to focus on the work of the Ministry of Justice and the Health and Safety Executive. The Ministry of Justice has a central role in the implementation of the compensation recommendations, while my department is the sponsor department for the HSE. That said, the recommendations impact on many other departments in government and I commend them all for their swift and positive response to recommendations and for their recognition of the need for change.

We must emphasise that this is not change for change’s sake. We need to build on the achievements of the past and recognise that, when responsibly applied, health and safety and the compensation system have an important part to play in making all our lives better. That is not in dispute. It is right that people should be protected from risk at work, whether in potentially dangerous environments such as oil rigs, construction and farm yards, or in lower-risk areas such as shops and offices. It is also right that those who, due to the negligence of others, are injured or made ill from their work or the work of others should have the right of redress. That point was made by the noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy, and we fully endorse it. The issue, as the noble Lord, Lord Young, so rightly brings out, is that we need to regain a sense of proportion.

The Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, which was pioneered by Lord Robens, was ground-breaking at the time of its introduction with the switch of emphasis from detailed prescriptive legislation to goal-setting regulations. However, his vision has now been distorted by overinterpretation, as my noble friend Lord German pointed out. Rules intended to protect workers in high-hazard industries have been overzealously applied to low-risk workplaces. Consultants encourage businesses to take unnecessary actions to avoid litigation. No-win no-fee adverts encourage people to seek compensation for genuine accidents, rather than to take responsibility for their own actions. These factors have led to pointless risk avoidance.

The Government have therefore welcomed the report of the noble Lord, Lord Young, as a milestone on the road to restoring proportionate health and safety. We need to push back against the use of health and safety and compensation, which become paralysing rather than protective. The emphasis should be on addressing real risks and preventing death, injury and ill health to those at work and those affected by work-related activities.

The Health and Safety Executive is already working to implement the recommendations of the noble Lord, Lord Young, especially those aimed at low-risk businesses. One example is an online risk assessment tool for those working in low-risk office-based environments which can be completed in 20 minutes. I hope that goes some way to satisfying the concerns expressed by the noble Lords, Lord Bhattacharyya and Lord Sugar. That particular tool will help employers to consider relevant hazards in their offices and think about how to control them. It will also help employers to avoid unnecessary paperwork and bureaucracy. A similar tool is out now for consultation to ease the paperwork burden that teachers face; tools for low-risk shops and for charity shops will be put out for consultation next month and the HSE will consult on similar guidance for small firms.

There is also the new occupational safety consultants register, which will be launched in January 2011. The register will provide businesses with details of safety consultants who have met the highest qualification standard of recognised professional bodies and who are bound by a code of conduct that requires them to give only advice which is sensible and proportionate. That may help to stop the gravy train referred to by the noble Lords, Lord Bhattacharyya and Lord Sugar, and by my noble friend Lord German.

The Ministry of Justice has been equally as prompt as the HSE in addressing my noble friend Lord Young’s recommendations. I shall touch on two areas in particular. The first is the concern about conditional fee arrangements and the culture surrounding them. The noble Lord, Lord Sugar, referred to the rogues in the industry. This point was touched upon by my noble friends Lord Hunt and Lord Black. As the House knows, last week we launched a consultation on Lord Justice Jackson’s recommendations on the reform of civil litigation, which will close on 14 February. It is in the structural reform plan of the Ministry of Justice, and the Government are very committed to this issue, which we will seek to implement rapidly, although it is up to the Secretary of State at the MoJ to confirm that.

Secondly, in March next year, the Ministry of Justice will launch a consultation on the reform of civil justice, covering the extension of the road traffic accident personal injury scheme. This consultation will address three aspects of the recommendations by my noble friend Lord Young. It will look at introducing a simplified claims procedure for personal injury claims similar to that for road accidents, explore the possibility of extending the framework of such a scheme to cover low-value clinical negligence claims, and explore the option of extending the upper limit for road traffic accident personal injury claims to £25,000.

These are specific examples of our response to the recommendations by my noble friend Lord Young, but noble Lords have raised a number of wider points that I will do my best to address in the time available. I shall start on a warmer note with the request from my noble friend Lady Thomas about hydrotherapy pools. I have to admit that I do not know off the top of my head what the situation is, but I do know that they are likely to be a lot warmer than the 6 degrees centigrade that Highgate men’s pond was this morning. I will put a letter in the Library when I have found out what the situation is.

The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, asked me about progress on tracing an employer’s liability policies. I cannot give him very much hard information. All I can do is assure him that this is receiving my full attention to get a satisfactory outcome. I know this is an important matter, I am in discussion with various bodies and I hope to get some resolutions, although the matter has not been made easier by the current court case about the definition of when a loss occurs.

My noble friend Lord Skelmersdale asked about the Adventure Activities Licensing Authority. The HSE is taking forward my noble friend Lord Young’s recommendation to abolish that authority. Its work will be replaced effectively by a code of practice.

[Lord Skelmersdale]

Does that require legislation?

[Lord Freud]

My noble friend will forgive me for not being able to answer him off the top of my head. I am not absolutely sure about how that abolition will happen. I will write to him and place a copy of the letter in the Library.

My noble friend Lord German and the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, asked about the SR settlement of the HSE and the reference to cuts among local authorities in this area. I hardly need to confirm that the HSE faces the kind of spending restraint that is seen in the rest of the public sector. Its current funding of £228.8 million will be reduced by 35 per cent over the SR period to around £150 million. The HSE is looking at how to maintain the position of health and safety in the country within that context and looking at its approach, and will report on how it will manage within that financial environment.

My noble friend Lord German and the noble Lord, Lord Smith, observed that there was a lack of evidence in my noble friend Lord Young’s report. I think I can speak for him in saying that there was wide consultation with stakeholders in the course of his review. The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, raised whether we are talking about reality or perception. My noble friend Lord Young’s report said that perception becomes reality at a certain point. The fact that people read silly health and safety myths in the media on a regular basis affects behaviour, has an impact and does not encourage a sensible and proportionate approach to risk. This dialogue about what is perception and what is reality does not properly take that point on board.

Gold-plating was raised by my noble friends Lord German and Lord Vinson. It is at the heart of what the Government are doing in this area. We need to position health and safety as an enabler for business and citizens. The Government strongly support that approach. We know that it is central to the HSE’s new approach in the context of the financial rigours that we are facing.

The noble Lords, Lord Smith and Lord Sugar, raised advertising. The claims management regulator has already agreed to look at the code regarding offering inducements and plans to close this loophole by April 2011. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Sugar, in particular, will welcome that assurance.

My noble friend Lord Vinson and the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, talked about bureaucracy and the criminal records check system. The clearly excessive bureaucracy adds little to our real safety and has become part of the perception problem. Such checks fall outside the HSE’s remit, but I will bring the concerns on that to the attention of colleagues.

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts]

My Lords, perhaps I may draw the attention of my noble friend to the fact that 100,000 people in this country are checked 30 times each and every year.

[Lord Freud]

I fully accept the concern of noble Lords on that issue and, as I say, we will push this point. In conclusion, good health and safety, particularly in low-risk areas, should be simple and straightforward. It should be about protecting people from real risks, not trivial risks. I believe that the approach of my noble friend Lord Young will help to put the focus back on managing serious risks and to dispel the myth that health and safety is a killjoy activity designed to place burdens on business, take the fun out of life and stop people from enjoying everyday activities. We will not make the United Kingdom a safer place by wrapping everyone in cotton wool and avoiding all risk. We will do it by being exemplars of a common-sense, proportionate approach to risk management, by giving people confidence to exercise judgment and by ensuring that advice and guidance is competent and fit for purpose. I commend the work and the report of my noble friend Lord Young, and I look forward to the successful implementation of his recommendations.