Health and Safety (Construction Industry)

Steve Webb Excerpts

Wednesday 9th March 2011 Westminster Hall

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Steve Webb)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Jim Sheridan) on securing the debate, on all the work that he does as chair of the all party parliamentary group and on the well-informed and measured way in which he has raised these issues. As he rightly said, one death is too many, which is the title of the Donaghy report. There were 42 fatalities in 2009-10 and that is not something to be proud of. I should just say that the Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, my right hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling), who takes the lead on these matters, is on the Front Bench in the Commons responding to the Welfare Reform Bill and so I am standing in for him today. I know that he welcomes the fact that over the past decade there has been a significant improvement in the number of fatalities in the construction sector.

Let me give a feel of the progress that has been made. The reason I mention this is that if we can see that progress has been made over a decade—although that until we get to zero deaths we should not rest, and even then we should not rest—the challenge for us is to see what delivered the progress and whether we can continue doing more of those things or whether fresh duties, fresh structures and fresh obligations are the best way forward. I want, therefore, to give some figures for the record. Ten years ago, in 2000-01, there were 105 fatalities, compared with 42 last year. There are also figures relative to the scale of the industry, which obviously fluctuates. Measured relative to every 1,000 workers, in every year except one of the last 10, the rate of fatalities has fallen. The Health and Safety Executive, the trade unions and the industry deserve some credit for the improvements that have been made.

The hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North quite properly asked, “But what of the future?” He speculated that fatalities would rise. I know that the HSE will be working very hard, in partnership with industry, the trade unions and the Government, to ensure that that does not happen. However, although he rightly says that there have been construction industry inspectors at the HSE on temporary contracts, they were always intended to be on temporary contracts. This Government have not decided to make them temporary. They were always fixed-term appointments that were due to end this summer. Nevertheless, even if we exclude those inspectors, as at January 2011 we have more HSE construction division inspectors in post than ever before.

I just want to give some idea of the sorts of people that I am talking about. Currently, 150 operational inspectors visit sites on a day-to-day basis—up by nearly 25 from three years ago. There are 24 line managers who also conduct inspections. In addition, there are 16 inspectors in construction sector and policy; 20 specialist inspectors who provide expert input on the causes of accidents and advice on technical issues; and 27 visiting officers in the construction sector. As things stand, therefore, there is a very significant commitment by the HSE to the construction sector.

As with all aspects of Government, budget cuts have been required of the HSE, but I stress that the HSE will inevitably continue to concentrate its work on the highest-risk sectors—

[Ian Lavery]

Will the Minister give way?

[Steve Webb]

I hope that the hon. Gentleman will allow me to continue for a moment. As I was saying, the HSE will continue to concentrate its work on the highest-risk sectors, such as construction.

I also want to respond to the specific point made by the hon. Member for Jarrow (Mr Hepburn) in his intervention. He suggested that there might be an end to unannounced inspections in the construction sector. I am happy to confirm on the record that there is no intention to stop unannounced inspections in construction and indeed the HSE will be paying greater attention to smaller sites, where we fully recognise that there are still poorer standards. Indeed, it is on those sites that the majority of fatal accidents happen.

[Mr Andrew Smith]

Will the Minister give way?

[Steve Webb]

If the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North is happy for me to give way, I will give way, but I have only eight minutes left to respond to his speech. I am in his hands. If he is happy for me to give way, I will give way.

[Jim Sheridan]

indicated assent.

[Steve Webb]

I will give way.

[Mr Andrew Smith]

I am grateful. I welcome the assurance from the Minister. Can he assure us that there will not be a reduction in the number of unannounced inspections?

[Steve Webb]

Obviously, the HSE will introduce its proposals for responding to the budget changes. Indeed, the Government will announce our health and safety strategy relatively shortly, in response to the Young review and other changes. Details about all those things will be made clear to the House in due course. However, the key thing is that I have no doubt—in preparation for this debate, I have obviously had helpful discussions with the HSE—about the HSE’s commitment to an ongoing and high level of effective intervention in the construction industry.

One feature of the construction industry is that it is clearly different from other industries. At its best, it is capable of great things and great successes, and it has a great deal of expertise in controlling health and safety risks to workers. Of course, even many of those temporary inspectors I mentioned, who soon will not be working for the HSE, will go back into the industry and take their expertise with them.

I said that there were just over 100 fatalities a decade ago. Two decades ago, 154 construction workers were killed. Progress, therefore, has been made—fairly considerable progress over a period of 20 years or more. The hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North mentioned the Donaghy inquiry and the issue of the Gangmasters Licensing Authority. I know that he has been involved with previous private Member’s legislation on the GLA and I also know that there is a private Member’s Bill on the matter before the House at the moment.

[Jim Sheridan]

The Minister has just announced figures about fatalities. Do they include people who lost their lives as a result of occupational or industrial disease, such as mesothelioma?

[Steve Webb]

The figures that I gave—for example, the figure of 154 fatalities for two decades ago—were for construction workers who were killed in accidents at work. I entirely take the hon. Gentleman’s point that issues that emerge during refurbishment work, for example with asbestos, silica and so on, are also very important. Indeed, I will try to reassure him on that particular point, as he raised it. The HSE is undertaking work on refurbishment and even as we speak that work is ongoing. The national refurbishment inspection initiative targets small refurbishment sites where a disproportionate number of serious and fatal accidents occur. The current initiative has been run periodically for several years and it is going on now between 14 February and 11 March. Although full data are not yet available, to date nearly 1,200 sites have been visited, involving more than 1,400 contractors and, alarmingly, breaches of health and safety legislation were found to be so significant that enforcement notices were required at 254 of those 1,200 sites. I join all hon. Members who have contributed to the debate in not being remotely complacent about where we are now on health and safety in construction.

The challenge is to ask what effective regulation would look like. I fully respect the argument that says, “Bring the Gangmasters Licensing Authority supervision into construction”. I can see why that argument is made. My reservation is that the health and safety rights of people in the construction industry are there already. The hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North mentioned bogus self-employment. Whether somebody is self-employed or employed, they have health and safety rights. Regarding some of the points that the hon. Gentleman made about those in bogus self-employment, there are obviously issues about tax. However, there is not much evidence—if any—that construction fatalities are higher among those who are notionally classified as self-employed as opposed to those who are employed.

The Gangmasters Licensing Authority is clearly a generalist authority that looks at issues such as minimum wage compliance, tax and national insurance, as well as health and safety. The danger is that if we bring construction within the scope of that authority we might get, at one level, duplication and potentially we might get a sort of box-ticking mentality, whereby people think, “We’ve got to satisfy this regulator and that regulator”. There could be regulatory confusion if we have different bodies trying to enforce health and safety.

I also want to give an idea of the scale of what might be required if we bring construction within the scope of the GLA. At the moment, the GLA licenses 1,200 gangmasters. If the licensing scheme was extended to cover the construction industry comprehensively, we could be talking about 200,000 licences. The cost of regulating the 1,200 licences in the sectors covered by the GLA already—agriculture, horticulture, shellfish gathering and associated industries—is just over £4 million a year, of which the taxpayer pays about £3 million. Clearly, there would be economies of scale if the GLA’s licensing scheme was extended to cover the construction industry, but simply pro rata-ing those figures to the full size of the construction industry would mean licensing costs of £600 million.

[Jim Sheridan]

rose—

[Steve Webb]

I will give way shortly. Of that £600 million, the taxpayer would pay £400 million. On a pro rata basis, we would potentially need 8,000 new inspectors. I do not claim to be an authority on the subject, but I find it difficult to imagine that there are 8,000 spare inspectors out there to be had, although people could be trained to become inspectors. In addition, creating this type of parallel regulatory structure alongside the HSE’s work is problematic. If there was £400 million to be spent—or indeed anything like it—channelling it through what is quite an effective existing regulator, enabling it to do more, might be a better idea.

[Jim Sheridan]

The Minister has referred to £3 million of taxpayers’ money being used to pay the licensing costs of the GLA. However, does he take into account the fact that gangmasters are then registered and legalised, and migrant workers are registered and legalised and they then pay tax and national insurance, which they would not be paying otherwise, so there is a net benefit to the Treasury?

[Steve Webb]

The figures that I am referring to are the gross running costs of the GLA and the revenue from licences. I am not sure about the potential payback of such a scheme in the construction sector. One thing to consider is that we would end up licensing in practice the entire sector—as it were, the good guys and the bad guys—and there would be a lot of dead weight in areas where there already was compliance with tax and national insurance legislation.

The hon. Gentleman also asked about the role of the construction skills certificate scheme. That is certainly a well regarded industry-run scheme and a big one, although there are many similar schemes across the industry, as I am sure he knows better than I do. My understanding is that the CSCS or an equivalent is already required under Government contracts, which I very much welcome. However, when it comes to legislating for the CSCS, for example, one issue that arises is whether we should choose that particular scheme or others. On balance, the health and safety at work and construction regulations already require workers to be trained for health and safety.

To conclude, I take the issues that the hon. Gentleman has raised very seriously. We want to make more progress on them and further announcements will be made by the Government in due course, but we will continue to take construction industry safety and fatalities seriously, as the hon. Gentleman quite properly says that we should.