Health and Safety: Common Sense Common Safety

Lord McKenzie of Luton Excerpts

Thursday 25th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Young, for his overdue visit to our House and for introducing this debate in what cannot be the easiest of weeks. I am sure that he will forgive me if I on the Front Bench do not exonerate him in quite the same effusive way as my noble friend Lord Rooker did. I also offer my congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, on a most impressive and entertaining maiden speech.

We welcome this debate, which gives us an opportunity to focus on health and safety and, in particular, to tackle the myths, exaggerations and half-truths that surround and undermine it. We will make common cause with the noble Lord, Lord Young, in his endeavour to improve the understanding of health and safety and the status of practitioners. However, we do so because we believe robust health and safety provision is a fundamental hallmark of a decent society and should be seen not as a burden on business but as an integral part of good business practice and a fundamental right for workers. My noble friend Lord Bhattacharyya made it clear that those companies with good health and safety systems have good management systems generally and good bottom-line performance. I say to the noble Viscount, Lord Younger, that I do not think that there is a conflict between good health and safety provision and liberating business.

Like a number of noble Lords, I celebrate the huge progress that has been made since the passing of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974—legislation that has stood the test of time. We have a good record, which is consistently one of the best in Europe. Since 1997, all measures of injury at work have shown improvement, yet the number of people who are still killed or harmed at work demonstrates how much more we need to do. We have heard the statistics. In 2009-10, more than 23 million days were lost through work-related ill health and some 5 million days were lost due to workplace injury. My noble friend Lord Haskel spoke about stress and the HSE’s management standards. We quote statistics but these are individual lives—careers interrupted, family finances put in jeopardy and aspirations dashed. Although no one should support an overzealous and disproportionate application of health and safety regulation, we also need to be mindful of non-compliance. It is disappointing that, so far as I can see, the report makes no positive recommendations on issues such as enforcement, prevention or, indeed, direct responsibilities.

Our approach must remain embedded in the principles of the 1974 Act, which rightly places the responsibility for managing risks on those who create them. We have to recognise that there are now many more SMEs and that fewer companies are unionised, which means that they miss out on the knowledge and worker engagement that has made a fundamental difference to many workplaces. In this context, we support what the HSE has encapsulated in its strategy: the importance of working together; the need for co-operation between co-regulators; and the essential role of leadership and worker engagement. We also need to be clear that those who fail in their duties are properly held to account.

We agree that these matters would be made easier in an environment where there was a better understanding of risk and where businesses were not frightened into seeking to eliminate all risk or to refrain from activity because of the fear of risk. We heard from the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, about the tragedy of young people being denied opportunities because of risk aversion. The noble Lord, Lord Taverne, took us into the area of GM crops, but I hope that he will forgive me if I do not follow him down that path this afternoon. My noble friend talked with passion about outdoor activities and about how those could be prevented from happening if we create and sustain an environment that is too risk averse.

The noble Lord, Lord Young, seeks to improve the perception of health and safety by tackling what is described as the growth of the compensation culture, which he asserts drives risk-averse behaviour. It is asserted that the compensation culture is compounded by businesses—particularly smaller ones—seeking the advice of health and safety consultants, who are often unqualified and some of whom deliver excessive and costly advice. As we have heard, the report’s recommendations cover issues such as tackling compensation, providing simplified risk assessment for what are termed low-hazard workplaces and raising standards for health and safety advisers. The noble Lord recognises that the problem of a compensation culture is one of perception rather than reality. In that I believe he was supported by the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, but it seemed to be at odds with what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, who suggested that it was a reality. On the basis of perception, it is difficult to discern how pervasive the compensation culture is and to discern the evidence for such a judgment, although the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts, had no doubt that it is pervasive.

However, I suggest that there is another side to this coin. The reality is that many people who are injured or made ill by their work never access compensation and, for those who do, the settlements are a million miles away from the amounts reported in the press and, indeed, from the example referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Monson. On a very specific issue, perhaps in his reply the Minister would update us on progress in tracing old employer liability policies. Despite improvements, there are too many sufferers of long-latency occupational diseases who do not access compensation.

The noble Lord, Lord Young, is a little ahead of his Government on the recommendations in Lord Justice Jackson’s report, which of course was commissioned under the previous Government. We consider this to be an important piece of work, focusing as it does on the challenges of facilitating access to justice at proportionate cost. We look forward to the outcome of the consultation on abolishing recoverability of CFA success fees and ATE insurance premiums. We also await the deliberations of the Legal Services Board on referral fees.

A number of noble Lords—in particular, my noble friend Lord Sugar but also the noble Lords, Lord Skelmersdale and Lord Hunt—spoke about the problems, challenges and activities of claims management companies. We heard from my noble friend Lord Smith of Finsbury that we need to look again at the role of advertising and we need to test the earlier research, which suggested that advertising was not a major contributor to these matters.

We can certainly support efforts to dispel misconceptions surrounding the risks of litigation arising from voluntary acts. That is particularly relevant, as my noble friend Lord Rooker said, with what looks like the onset of snow. The noble Lord, Lord Young, is right to identify the challenges faced by SMEs and the role that the HSE has played in helping them to understand what is required. The development of pro forma risk assessments, awareness raising and education as well as engagement via trade associations have all contributed to improvements. There are recommendations for the HSE to do more: to produce simplified interactive risk assessment forms for offices, classrooms, and shops; to produce periodic checklists; to consolidate existing regulations; and to provide separate guidance for SMEs. Doubtless the HSE will respond in its usual highly professional manner, but can the noble Lord, Lord Young, or the Minister comment on the HSE’s capacity to cope with these and other demands that the report imposes in the light of the 35 per cent reduction in its resources? The HSE already has to cope with a difficult balancing act in allocating resources between its enforcement and prevention activities. I think that the HSE has about 1,300 frontline inspectors and, excluding nuclear and major hazard installations, these inspectors cover nearly 900,000 premises and 15 million workers.

The noble Lord’s report defines low-hazard workplaces as those where the risk of injury or death is minimal, but that seems totally to ignore health issues. Of course, the same health and safety laws do not apply to all workplaces. There are major hazard regulations, which rightly impose far more prescriptive standards on potentially dangerous sites. However, the general health and safety law that applies to all workplaces is designed to be proportionate to the varying risks. These risks might include threats of violence and abuse of shop workers, MSDs for office workers and exposure to hazardous substances for cleaning staff, and there is still plenty of asbestos around in schools. Therefore, we can support improved ways of helping businesses to understand the identification, management and control of risk but not any moves to remove them from the requirement to risk assess. Periodic checklists may help, but they must not just engender an unthinking tick-box approach.

We are supportive of the proposals to raise standards and the development of the health and safety profession. Indeed, that got under way on our watch, so why would we not do so? The challenges will relate to encompassing the technical and the practical, and low-level support as well as more sophisticated requirements. I say to my noble friend Lord Sugar that, as well as being a health and safety adviser without any qualifications, he can also call himself an accountant.

There are wider educational issues about embedding health and safety in the curriculum and in a range of professional qualifications, as well as creating awareness in our schools. We should also recognise the substantial and knowledgeable input from the trade unions and safety representatives, to which my noble friends Lady Donaghy and Lady Turner referred. I say to my noble friend Lady Turner that I think the “not required back” arrangements are still in operation in the offshore sector.

Local authorities play a vital role as co-regulators of more than 1 million workplaces. They have a strong partnership with the HSE and there is increasingly joined-up working among authorities. The report comments, in particular, on the primary authority scheme and notes its successes, but the report also suggests that the scheme needs strengthening to address inconsistent enforcement. I would support that. Like the HSE, local authorities will be under enormous financial pressures with cuts to resources of some 28 per cent, which are to be front-end loaded. The noble Lord’s recommendations for local authorities concern refusals to hold events. I accept that from time to time local authorities, like others, may prevent certain activities from taking place. We have heard about the St Albans pancake race and about problems with the hydrotherapy pools from the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas. Sometimes such things come from the overzealous application of health and safety rules using health and safety as a shield, but that cannot be supported. I question how often that happens. I was unable to identify any data on how often events are banned by local authorities, but doubtless the Minister will be able to provide that in his winding up.

Like my noble friend Lord Jordan, I think that the most striking thing about the report is how little of it is actually about health and safety. Most of the proposals are about food safety or public safety—important as they are—but there is no awareness of the problems around occupational disease and no recommendations on issues of prevention. The noble Lord sees the matter only from a perspective of freeing business from the burdens. Nevertheless, I hope that the report will in some way contribute to bringing back a sense of proportion. I end by quoting IOSH:

“For every silly health and safety news story there are countless unreported stories of untimely death, terrible injury or debilitating disease. This is the reality of health and safety going wrong. We need to remember that an estimated 5,000 people’s lives have been saved since the Health and Safety at Work Act … Many thousands more have been saved from suffering serious injury and disease”.

We have a responsibility to argue the cause of health and safety as well.