Health and Safety at Work

Lord Freud Excerpts

Monday 4th April 2011 Grand Committee

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

My Lords, I am grateful, as always, to the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, for the opportunity to update the House on how the Government’s proposed changes to the health and safety system will encourage safer and healthier workplaces.

I should begin by reiterating why change is needed. Good health and safety is, of course, vital, and the Government are committed to maintaining health and safety protections. That is the whole point—for health and safety to be effective, it must be a protection, not a burden. Health and safety legislation, overzealously applied, achieves nothing. That is exactly the point that the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, made about snap shackles. Equally, compensation claims, pursued at random, simply breed cynicism. Our challenge is to lift these burdens and—to paraphrase my noble friend Lord Young of Graffham—to let common sense prevail.

Noble Lords will be aware that the Government are committed to implementing the recommendations in my noble friend’s report, Common Sense, Common Safety, and have recently reinforced this commitment. On 21 March, my right honourable friend the Minister for Employment, Chris Grayling, announced the next steps in the Government’s plans for health and safety reform in Britain. These include setting up an immediate review of health and safety regulation, with a wide-ranging remit including exploring the scope for consolidating, simplifying or abolishing regulations. The review, led by Professor Ragnar Löfstedt, director of the risk management centre at King’s College London, is set to make recommendations this autumn. I can assure my noble friend Lord German that the terms of reference will be published on the DWP’s website before the end of May. The overall remit for the review was set out in Good Health and Safety, Good for Everyone. In the mean time, I assure noble Lords that the Government are already making good progress in implementing the recommendations set out in the report of my noble friend Lord Young. Those who wish to can view a progress report on my department’s website, detailing progress against all the recommendations.

My noble friend Lord German expressed concern about whether the code of practice would be enforceable in respect of adventure activities. That code of practice will be consulted on shortly. In practice, current licensing does not cover many of the newer adventure activities—I do not think that it covers coasteering, for instance. Health and safety law will continue to apply and will be enforced appropriately.

I shall focus on two aspects of our strategy today: first, the action that we are taking to change the health and safety culture for the benefit of Britain’s workplaces; and, secondly, our focus on reforming so-called no-win no-fee agreements and other aspects of civil litigation funding and costs.

Culture change, whether in health or safety or anything else, does not happen overnight, but its results can be impressive. Perhaps noble Lords will allow me a personal reflection. I well remember meeting officials from Eurotunnel—for which I was working in a more financial capacity—some 20 years ago and comparing the numbers of fatalities that occurred during the construction phase of that amazing project. There were seven on the British side and two on the French side. The factors involved were many and various, but I was struck and a little shocked by how much the French construction industry had achieved for itself compared with its British counterpart and how much its strong safety culture owed to partnership working.

Happily, in the intervening years, much of the British construction industry has followed suit, and the benefits are plain to see. The industry now has a fatal injury rate of 2.2 workers per 100,000 per year, which is among the best in the world.

Against this background I am delighted to report that the efforts of the noble Lord, Lord Young, and of the Minister for Employment to deliver culture change are already bearing fruit. Following its recent launch by the Health and Safety Executive, already more than 2,000 health and safety consultants have been approved to join the online Occupational Safety and Health Consultants Register. It is not only the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, who has welcomed the register. We confidently expect more consultants to join the scheme as its reputation grows.

I need hardly explain the importance of the new register. It should spell the end of rogue health and safety advisers. All those on the register will be properly accredited to a professional health and safety body, which is good news for health and safety and, indeed, good news for business.

The consultants register is designed to help employers who need general health and safety advice to find a well qualified and experienced consultant who is able to give that advice. Employers using a registered consultant can have confidence that the consultant belongs to a professional body, has had their experience and qualifications assessed and is undertaking continuing professional development; in short, someone who is committed to providing sensible and proportionate advice and is properly insured.

To pick up on my noble friend Lord German’s point, there will be an annual renewal process to make sure that all those on the register still meet the eligibility criteria. The relevant professional body will deal with complaints and, indeed, could take action to remove consultants from that register. The new register is just one of several online tools launched recently by the Health and Safety Executive, with a view to providing small and medium-sized enterprises, and others, with straightforward guidance on how to manage health and safety.

Health and Safety Made Simple, for example, is a concise and easy-to-navigate website, designed specifically for low-risk SMEs. Similarly, four interactive risk assessment tools have been developed—specifically for offices, shops, charity shops and classrooms—and the HSE has also just published simple web advice making clear that health and safety law is not a barrier to volunteering activities, and explaining clearly when the law applies in practice.

Taken together, these new measures will allow businesses to achieve a basic level of health and safety compliance, and that, again, is good news for everyone. A basic level of compliance means lower-risk businesses delivering on their key health and safety obligations—but not being smothered by red tape, nor health and safety inspections, in the process.

As for my noble friend’s point on asbestos, asbestos clearly must remain a priority. Work to educate and raise awareness of the risk is under way and included in the HSE’s forward business plan.

On inspections, perhaps one of the biggest changes is the focusing of inspection and enforcement on those areas where it is needed most. In the current financial climate, there is no point in claiming that the enforcing authorities can inspect all businesses to the same extent and with the same frequency. On the other hand, why should they? Why should a lower-risk business be inspected as much as a higher-risk one? Equally, why should a business that is in serious breach of its health and safety responsibilities not be charged by the enforcing authorities for putting things right?

Let me be clear: we have no intention of reducing inspections in high-hazard industries. In fact, by the end of SR10, the aim is to have more, not less, nuclear and hazardous industries inspectors. As for unnecessary inspections, an issue raised by the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, the statement is designed to drive this change of behaviour.

On inspector numbers, as of April 2011, we have 2,500 front-line staff and we are expecting an increase over the next year, with the figures beyond that date dependent. As I said, there is no intention to reduce numbers substantially although, with the reduction in the number of inspections, by implication the concentration on the higher-risk industries will intensify. This is not a net loss but an additional concentration on the higher-risk industries.

The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, asked about the evidence base for lower-risk classifications of industries. Essentially, it comes from the Office for National Statistics, and trends over that show where sectors are improving their health and safety performance. Higher-risk classifications relate to those industries where performance remains a concern. In agriculture, farm inspections have not proved effective in reducing injuries over the years. The current approach involves new training and education and has proved to be more effective.

As for my noble friend’s point about how to decide who to inspect without proactive inspections, clearly there is a whistleblower element and a follow-up of complaints. More importantly, however, there is also a follow-up of those incidents and an investigation where necessary. Other inspections will reflect evidence of risk and be regularly reviewed.

There was a question about why quarrying and transport have been excluded. It is mainly because of improvements in their performance over recent years.

Given the time constraints, I shall not speak about issues of civil justice. Those issues were not specifically raised so I shall perhaps leave them until another occasion.

[Lord Berkeley]

The noble Lord has just mentioned quarries and transport, but where do railways come into this? I asked whether railways are part of transport or something else.

[Lord Freud]

That is currently being looked at within the Office of Rail Regulation. It was separated—I forget exactly when, but, from memory, I think it was 2004—and is now being brought back together and integrated with the regulator.

[Baroness Turner of Camden]

The noble Lord has not mentioned trade unions once and yet this is a major part of all unions’ work. For many years it was one of my responsibilities within my union to run a scheme that provided assistance to people who had accidents at work. The TUC is very much involved with the prevention of accidents and so on and it is a major part of unions’ work. The Minister did not mention that. Although he referred to the register of people who are giving professional advice and so on, he did not mention unions at all.

[Lord Freud]

I apologise. That was an inadvertent miss-out. Clearly where there is a more responsive, not so proactive system, the unions would have a role in alerting the HSE where there were concerns. Clearly, the role of education and training in reducing health problems in many of these areas will be important.

One area in which I am most interested is what we will find from the sickness absence review. This has now been launched and will be looking at periods of sickness absence of 28 weeks. Stress-related and mental health-related issues account for around 40 per cent of such absence, and it will be very interesting to see whether we can use the new arrangements for managing sickness absence to ratchet up how employers look after their staff. I know that the sickness absence review team is actively looking at that. Therefore, there is a health and not just a safety angle here.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

I am sorry to intervene again and the Minister may wish to write to me, but perhaps I may clarify two points. First, can he confirm that the evidence base on which the categorisation has been determined takes account of evidence relating to propensity for ill health in sectors, as well as accidents and fatalities? Secondly, in relation to reactive, as well as proactive, inspections, the document, if I read it correctly, says that in both areas—that is, the high-risk areas and areas of concern, but not the low-risk areas—the HSE will continue to undertake inspection for enforcement purposes or to follow up complaints when such an intervention appears necessary. Can the Minister confirm that there is no intention of having reactive inspections for what are classed as lower-risk areas—for example, the transport sector, electrical engineering, and indeed education provision, as we know that asbestos in schools is a continuing problem?

[Lord Freud]

I am happy to confirm both those points. The first, concerning health, is clearly part of the statistical base that will alert the HSE. Secondly, where there is concern, the HSE will respond whether it is a lower risk or a higher risk, and that is exactly as I understood the section of the document to which the noble Lord referred. It says that in as many words.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

My Lords, perhaps we should pursue this matter outside the Committee, as I do not think that it does. The comment seems to relate to the first two areas—areas of concern and areas of high risk—but not those of low risk. However, perhaps we can deal with that in correspondence.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Freud]

I should be happy to write a full letter on that point. In conclusion, I am confident that our health and safety changes are a force for good, ensuring that civil justice and health and safety law are applied sensibly. 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. I have said before that 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 delivering a health and safety system that is fair, balanced and proportionate.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Fookes)]

My Lords, the Committee stands adjourned until 4.30 pm.