Deregulation Bill

Lord Stoneham of Droxford Excerpts

Tuesday 21st October 2014 Lords Chamber

After 40 years of progress, we see the Government unforgivably trying to unravel parts of our health and safety system, so opposition to this clause comes not only from us but the TUC and the EEF, from professional bodies as well as campaigning organisations such as APIL, IOSH, IIRSM, RoSPA and others—all people who know and work with the present system. Frankly, we do not think that the Minister’s heart is in it either, nor should it be. We should resist Clause 1 and strike it from the Bill.

[Lord Stoneham of Droxford (LD)]

My Lords, my personal position is that we should not bother to amend this aspect of the Health and Safety etc. Act, but I also accept that, although there are arguments on both sides, the chasm of disagreement is not as great as either side might want us to think.

There are certain bêtes noires of our society which are blamed for most of our problems, whereas in reality the positive contributions of those organisations are often greater. One of those is the Health and Safety Executive. The perception of that organisation often gets in the way of reality. The health and safety legislation has assisted huge improvements, as indeed have better management practice and staff involvement to address poor work practice and productivity related to poor safety conditions.

The questioning of the working of the health and safety legislation and the European directives associated with it was probably to be expected from this Conservative-led Government, but Professor Löfstedt may have disappointed many when he said that no radical reform was needed and that the problem was less with regulations and more with the way in which they were interpreted and regulated. However, one feels that he had to say something to come up with a political proposal. He advocated that those self-employed whose work activities pose no threat to others should be excluded, which would help reduce the perception that health and safety is inappropriately applied.

The reality is that there is not much of a burden on the self-employed. That was proved in the Government’s consultation. If you do not believe the Health and Safety Executive, even the mighty Engineering Employers’ Federation, as the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, told us, supports its view, stating:

“It is a myth to suggest that the self-employed are singled out by the regulatory authorities for inspection. This is not the case nor is there a record of prosecution against the self-employed, except in a few cases where their activities have or could have impacted others adversely”.

If such burdens were so great on the self-employed and on small businesses, how do we account for the huge growth in self-employment and business start-ups under this coalition Government?

There is a problem with excluding general categories of self-employed for whom health and safety is not a burden. You end up making the regulations more complicated and less simplified, which should be the objective of the legislation. The self-employed are going to have to know whether they are excluded. To many, this might mean that understanding the regulations will be even more difficult than it is now, and that we are going to have all sorts of categories, whether it is drivers, removal people, carpenters and all trades people, construction workers, bee-keepers and so on, excluded from this provision in the Deregulation Bill. The general view that this change is not worth the candle is one which I share, but if we are to have it—and I accept that we probably are—we must see the list of exemptions to reassure people that no real harm is going to be done.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as the chairman of a company that from time to time gives health and safety advice and as a former Minister for health and safety. I start from the assumption that there is something a bit peculiar about an outside body controlling the way that an individual shall disport himself in his own business—particularly if it is held in his home. That is not unreasonable. More and more people work at home. We are changing the law to make it impossible for people who rent accommodation to be told that they cannot work at home. There are many jobs that people do at home where, frankly, telling someone that they should not stand on an upturned waste-paper basket to get something down from a shelf is an intrusion.

That is my basis, so I do not come to this with any antagonism. There is truth in the feeling that the health and safety regulations have, whether because of their application or because of the perception, stopped a whole lot of activities which it would be better not to have stopped. I also know that many of those who are opposed to the European Union have used this as an excuse to bash the European Union when, of course, almost all of it is our domestic attitudes, and the European Union has adopted British attitudes towards health and safety. I often point out to people that the ease with which the European Union is blamed for things is one of the problems with people’s perception of that very important institution to which we belong and to which I trust that we will fight to ensure that we go on belonging.

However, there are some real problems here that have not been approached. Perhaps I may give some practical experience. Recently, I talked to someone who had been held responsible for an accident in premises which he owned and oversaw by a self-employed person who did something dangerous to himself, but not on his own property but on that of the person concerned. We have to face the odd issue that if we are not very careful, we will have circumstances in which the employee of a firm will be protected and the self-employed will find themselves protected or affected only when they are working somewhere else. Does that mean that a self-employed person who has no responsibility under the Act to protect himself nevertheless has a case against someone else for his own actions, because they happened to be on their premises? That may not seem to be a general activity, but it is a bit more general than some would like. That would bring no benefit to people’s approach to health and safety legislation.

I use that example not because it is the most important, but because it makes me wonder whether, in the speedy time in which the Bill has been discussed, we have thought through all the ramifications. Having been a Minister for health and safety, I have to say that it is a very complex area. Apart from the very real sense that people feel that we have overdone it in many concerns, let us also accept that it has had remarkable success in protecting people, sometimes from themselves.

That brings me to my second point. My noble friend raised the argument of whether, if you have sufficient people exempted from cover, those who are not covered will know whether they are exempted. In other words, there seems to be a real complication about how people get to know whether they should be there or not. That in itself is one of the things that will bring the Act into disrepute. People will say, “I don’t know if I am covered. Perhaps I had better find out—I had better get somebody to tell me”. Frankly, they will find themselves in precisely the position from which the Government are, absolutely rightly, trying to protect them. I have a real issue with the complications which inevitably come if we are dealing with this.