Asbestos Removal

Mark Harper Excerpts

Tuesday 9th September 2014 Westminster Hall

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Mr Mark Harper)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram) for having secured this debate, which enables us to discuss an important subject. I can answer a number of his questions, but if he thinks that there is anything that I have not answered, I will of course be happy to write to him.

The responsibility for the management and control of health and safety risks, including from exposure to asbestos, ultimately lies with those who create the risk. As the hon. Gentleman correctly said, the duty holder will be those who either own or control buildings that contain asbestos or materials that contain asbestos, and they have a duty to manage safety. Duty holders include retail stores and other businesses used by members of the public. People need to identify where asbestos-containing materials are present, and they need to ensure that such materials are either properly maintained, enclosed and repaired, as appropriate, or removed, where necessary.

The HSE’s advice on asbestos is clear. If the material containing asbestos is in good condition and is not vulnerable to damage, it should be left in place because the risk to those who work in or use the facilities will be lower than if an attempt is made to remove the material. If the material is in good condition, removal is better done at the end of a building’s life, when the building will not be reoccupied. If the material is not in good condition, however, or if it is likely to be damaged or disturbed, leading to the release of asbestos fibres, it should be removed.

Those decisions should be taken on a case-by-base basis because they depend on the specific situation of the building, the location of the asbestos-containing materials, the likelihood of their being disturbed and, of course, the future plans for the building, such as whether it will be refurbished or whether it is coming to the end of its life. Those duties fall on the duty holder. That is the HSE’s approach, and the current regulations, which the hon. Gentleman mentioned, and the legislative framework on the risk, and on dealing with the risk proportionately, was reviewed relatively recently by the Government’s chief scientific adviser, who thought that the legislative framework is proportionate to the risks from asbestos. The framework is good.

In the case of Marks & Spencer, which was mentioned by the hon. Gentleman, there were two stores being refurbished in Reading and Bournemouth in 2006. As he said, the work required the removal of asbestos-containing ceiling tiles. Marks & Spencer took the decision to remove the asbestos and engaged licensed contractors, who were asked to work overnight in enclosed areas so that small areas could be completed, thereby enabling the shops to open the following day.

However, the way the work was planned did not allow the contractors to remove the asbestos in accordance with minimum standards. As the hon. Gentleman said, there was a prosecution for failings under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, which led to significant fines for Marks & Spencer and for some of the other companies involved. The prosecution was brought by the HSE, and it is right that there were significant penalties because asbestos, as the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) said in his brief intervention, causes the deaths of a significant number of people in the United Kingdom—many from exposure over a considerable period. The best estimate, which I think he suggested, is about 5,000 a year, so the issue is serious. Duty holders must take appropriate steps.

On Marks & Spencer’s continuing work on the issue, I should say that licensed contractors undertaking asbestos removal must notify the enforcing authority. Since 2011, the HSE has received 112 notifications of such work that were identifiably related to Marks & Spencer stores and has inspected on 14 occasions. In those cases, it has found that no enforcement action needed to be taken, meaning that the work was being conducted in accordance with the appropriate risk controls.

The hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton mentioned retail premises generally. It is worth saying that the retail sector takes this issue seriously. The Retail Asbestos Working Group deals with managing asbestos-containing materials in the retail sector, recognising that retail environments involve circumstances and conditions that present challenges in terms of public access and dealing with removing and managing the risk from asbestos. A range of organisations are involved in putting together guidance, and the guidance includes a foreword by the head of construction at the Health and Safety Executive, demonstrating that it sets out what steps retail premises of all sizes should take. I mention that because the hon. Gentleman specifically referred to training and the sorts of work done by retail premises.

The guidance makes it clear that there is a range of training. Some of it involves those undertaking licensed asbestos work for high-risk situations, but it also goes right down to information and training for shop assistants who put up notices and decorations, maintenance contractors who carry out daily repairs and other contractors who enter such premises to undertake work that might expose them to asbestos. The guidance is clear that training must take place across a range of staff in the retail environment. I hope that that at least gives the hon. Gentleman some confidence that retail businesses are aware of the requirements.

It is also worth saying generally, so that the hon. Gentleman and others are aware of what the regime looks like, that where it is decided that the proper management of the risk from asbestos-containing materials involves removing the asbestos, licensed contractors must be engaged and the enforcing authority must be notified 14 days before work starts. That will either be the HSE or local authorities, which can then plan visits to monitor the work done.

In the year 2013-14, the HSE received 37,553 notifications and did 1,318 inspections, meaning that 91% of all those holding a licence were visited in that year. Those reviews are taken seriously, so evidence of unsafe or poorly managed work can result in formal enforcement action, which may lead to stopping the work or, in the most serious cases, to prosecutions. Licences can also be reviewed.

It might be helpful for the House to know that there are 415 contractors licensed to remove asbestos as of April this year. Licences are for a fixed period of up to three years. To give an example of the quality assurance involved in the process, 188 licences, including renewals, were granted in 2013-14, while 25 were refused, and 91% of those licensed contractors would have been visited by the Health and Safety Executive at one or more sites where they were removing asbestos. Over the past five years, the HSE has issued 1,715 improvement notices, 552 of them under the duty to manage asbestos, and taken out 129 prosecutions, 24 of them under the duty to manage the risk from asbestos. The HSE is absolutely focused on the importance of monitoring asbestos removal, and it takes robust enforcement action.

[Steve Rotheram]

The Minister is being helpful in identifying the legislative framework in which the industry must work. Is he therefore concerned that asbestos materials with a risk rating of 18-plus have been left in what have been described as fallow areas within stores for years, even up to a decade? Surely that flouts what he said at the beginning about the HSE guidance that damaged asbestos should be removed as soon as reasonably practicable.

[Mr Harper]

Let me address that point directly, as the hon. Gentleman spent some time on it. The general principle that I set out was that the guidance is clear about when asbestos is best left in situ and when it should be removed. My sense, not being an expert, is that judgments about the condition that the asbestos is in and when it is best left there are a technical question.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned some specific surveys that had come into his possession. If it is helpful, I will ask officials to advise me on the issue of where retailers or others have identified damaged asbestos, to use his phrase, in situ and the decision is taken to leave it while containing it. I will ask for advice on that and write to him. It might be helpful if he shared some of the specific reports that he mentioned. I would be happy to ask some of the HSE’s technical experts to look at them and see whether that asbestos properly falls into the category of situations in which it is best and safest to leave it where it is, or the category in which action should be taken. It sounds more like a technical, case-specific question, but I am happy to ask the experts to look at those reports and come back to me. Then I will report back to the hon. Gentleman what their professional judgment is.

[Steve Rotheram]

That would be a partial solution. What I am trying to understand is whether the Minister thinks the situation is acceptable, given the framework that he has outlined and the fact that HSE’s guidance says to remove asbestos. I am talking about broken pieces of asbestos, not a hole in the wall. I am talking about dust being left. It is obviously dangerous; it is 18-plus risk-rated asbestos. Surely best practice would be to get rid of the asbestos as soon as reasonably practicable. Does the Minister think that a decade is a suitable time scale?

[Mr Harper]

I was clear in what I said; the HSE advice, which I think is sensible, is also clear. If the material is not in good condition—from the hon. Gentleman’s description, it sounds as though that is the case—and it is likely to be damaged or disturbed, leading to the release of asbestos fibres, it should be removed. Duty holders have a responsibility to do so, and to ensure that their workers, shoppers and others are not exposed to that risk.

On judgments in specific cases, as I said, I take the hon. Gentleman’s word for it; he has read the reports and I have not. Clearly judgment must be made on a case-by-case basis, which is why I said that it would be helpful, just to get a flavour of the issue, to have experts look at the reports that he mentioned to see whether the HSE’s guidance is being complied with and, if not, whether action can be taken.

It is a shame that the hon. Member for Strangford has left the Chamber, as I was just about to address his intervention on the campaigning idea. He and the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton mentioned training and education. The HSE has well advanced plans to run another campaign this autumn particularly targeting at-risk tradespeople, such as plumbers, joiners, builders and electricians, who are aware that asbestos is dangerous but are often ill-informed about how to deal with the risk.

The campaign will include the distribution of 200,000 free asbestos safety kits, information and a web app to help people work more safely with asbestos, as well as a national and regional media campaign that will cover Scotland and Wales as well as England. Northern Ireland— this is particularly relevant to the hon. Member for Strangford—will make its own arrangements, but the HSE will provide advice about the campaign and share relevant information so that it can be run across the whole United Kingdom.

To return to the point made by the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton about a toolbox, I should say that everyone involved in the sorts of trade affected, whether they are licensed contractors or tradespeople who may be exposed to risk, should be properly educated about the risk and the steps that they need to take to ensure that they do not expose themselves to the known risks from asbestos. We want to reduce the annual death toll resulting from historical exposure to asbestos. I hope that that is helpful, and I think that I have set out clearly what work we can do after this debate to take forward the hon. Gentleman’s points.