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It is important for people not to be besieged by notices of one sort or another dealing with all the affairs in which they become involved. People could become so confused that they would not take the matter seriously. The Bill must separate important and unimportant matters. We must not allow people to be so deluged with unnecessary information that it loses its usefulness. I certainly hope that we can promote and improve public safety information. I am sure that my hon. Friend knows of my considerable interest in the St. John Ambulance and of the amount of work that I have tried to do by drawing attention to the need for adequate safety provision at sports grounds. That is a considerable problem because while some football clubs, for example, are extremely helpful and readily provide facilities, others are extremely reluctant to make funds available for adequate public safety. Publicity tends to fall on deaf ears.My hon. Friend the Member for Wanstead and Woodford said that no one really expects a catastrophe to happen to him. People think that catastrophes happen to others. At Hillsborough, Bradford and other places, matters could have been vastly improved if the first-aid facilities made available for the use of St. John Ambulance and others had been much better. I hope that we can properly look into and advance the cause of public safety in all walks of life. 12.24 pm
Mr. Peter Bottomley (Eltham) : In his interesting speech my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford, South (Mr. Thorne) spoke about St. John Ambulance and its services. I am in the middle of correspondence with the Ministry of Transport and British Rail about first-aid facilities for passengers at Victoria station. We need to be aware that in some areas where provision might be expected there is no statutory responsibility. I would not argue that we should do only those things required by statute, but where large numbers of people are gathered together, such as at rail and other transport terminals, we should consider what the provision ought to be, either directly or through the St. John Ambulance or others, so that those who find themselves in need can receive immediate attention rather than waiting for an ambulance to be taken to hospital. Thousands of people passing through Victoria station do not seem to have the provision that is found in many places of entertainment and sports stadiums. I do not ask my hon. Friend the Minister to give an immediate answer to that, but I use it to link my speech to that of my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford, South.
We need to distinguish between risk and casualty reduction on the one side and the improvement of safety on the other. It is easy to increase safety without bringing about any reduction in the numbers of people who are killed or injured. That comes out most obviously in one area with which I have had an association--reducing casualties on the road. It also links to the work of the Health and Safety Executive when I served in the Department of Employment about six years ago.
With relatively small numbers of inspectors and a large number of establishment, it is easy for an inspector to spend all his time without having any impact on casualty reduction. Inspectors could make sure that the right notices are displayed and try to ensure that they visit all the
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premises for which they are responsible, if that is possible, but that would not necessarily focus on the issues that matter most. Much of the garment trade is located in the east of London and there the inspectors are right to concentrate on matters likely to lead to catastrophes. There may be people working in premises in which the fire door is padlocked, and there can be even greater danger if the person who has the key to the padlock is off somewhere else. Inspectors are right to concentrate on inspection systems for boilers, because an exploding boiler could have the same impact as a mortar bomb landing in the garden of No. 10 Downing street. It may not get the same attention, but it could be just as disastrous. The Bill does not include the provisions of the Health and Safety at Work, etc. Act 1974. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Mr. Bowis) not only on raising this subject but on the work that he has put into the Bill and his speech. However, I counsel him that if he is advised to incorporate the provisions of that Act into the Bill, he will end up with a huge computer print-out. There are many provisions in that Act and when piled up, they would probably be about 1 m--or 3 ft 3 in, to use the old imperial measure--deep.As my hon. Friend said, information would probably have saved the lives of people at Bradford. There were warnings about a specific potential cause of a dangerous fire. No one could have predicted that the fire would lead to so many deaths, but the Bill would have led to action being taken. We would then not have known that lives had been saved.
My hon. Friend the Member for Battersea mentioned the Clapham crash and other hon. Members mentioned the Marchioness. By itself, the Bill would not have affected either of those tragedies because nobody could have said in advance that a specific risk was evident. Having a culture of risk reduction, and giving people more opportunities to make a fuss--even if they are accused of having bees in their bonnet, as I often am
Mr. Bottomley : My hon. Friend is too kind. Some people want to whistle blow because they are concerned about their responsibility to their passengers who are their fellow human beings. Here, I am thinking mainly of transport, although the Bill applies to other sectors. People who make their views known achieve results. One way to achieve results is to realise, as my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea does, the importance of trade union membership. The trade union health and safety representatives do a great deal of unsung work in this. They co-operate with employers as well. Trade unions, together with organisations such as the Industrial Society and training boards, deserve credit for what they have done in this sector. They are a bit like the people teaching in primary schools. Their achievements are not noticed until some years afterwards when the statistics make them clear.
In organisations large and small, a positive approach to trade unions is important. I say this with some force because my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea was the national organiser for the Conservative trade unionists before he came to the House. I hope that more people will follow his footsteps so that the interests of people at work are represented by both sides of the House. People's
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interests are served by more than just giving them more money or extra skills. Safety at work is part of the unsung, unpaid work of 200,000 shop stewards and safety representatives in every industry. More attention to detail might have helped in the Clapham and Marchioness disasters.Much of the support for the Bill comes from people who have been involved in tragedies. My experience has been mainly of road casualties. Every day, 14 people die on the roads. Those who suffer from the results of such tragedies and not organised, apart from the Campaign Against Drinking and Driving. I say to anyone who would ignore the interests of those who have been involved in disasters, whether Lockerbie or the Marchioness, or of those who have been bereaved by them, that they should try the experience of sitting in a room with 300 people who have nothing in common except that, for each of them, a member of his family has been killed in such a way. That provides a focus for what too many of us ignore because we take it for granted that someone else will deal with it.
Information, especially if it is given in public, or more often if it is given by a public authority, is ignored. When I was a Minister in the Department of Transport I was concerned about the risks to railway passengers if a bridge over a road was carried away by an oversized vehicle. In co-operation with many others, the Department produced a report called, in plain English, "Bridge Bashing". It dealt with how we would cope with the one in 10 chance that, over the next 10 years, there would be a major disaster when a bridge over or under a railway is carried away, with the result that a train with 400 people on board will come to an abrupt halt. It will not be like Cannon Street--it will be an even greater tragedy.
We set out to halve the risks, but that still leaves some risk. Some bridges are too low to allow the passage of an articulated lorry with a container. We put up signs by these bridges, but still people crash their containers into them and leave the container behind. So far, a bridge has not been carried away. There is information about that risk and there has been a public approach to reducing the risk in a cost-effective way, but we know that such behaviour continues, with the certainty of injury which increases with every day that passes.
The Department also endeavoured to bring to the attention of highway authorities the desirability of making roads as skid-resistant as possible. It calculated that by spending a relatively small amount of money each year --not just on national roads, but the 96 per cent. of highways that are the responsibility of local authorities--to raise their level of skid- resistance to a cost-effective, appropriate level, there would be a significant return on that investment, in terms of the number of casualties that would be avoided.
By using a monitoring machine, it is possible to determine roads where the coefficient of friction is too low according to the standard. However, what was to be done where local authorities could not immediately arrange for contractors to undertake the necessary resurfacing? The answer, which is roughly in accordance with the provisions of the Bill, was to require an authority to erect a sign warning of a slippery road ahead. However, that has led to a rash of such warning signs, which I fear some people might tend to ignore. When road conditions are as bad as they are at this moment, everyone drives more cautiously--but I hope that road users will respond more to warning signs even in
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normal circumstances. That is one example of how public safety information can allow an individual to modify his or her behaviour and to reduce the risk to which they and others are exposed. There are some elements of public information already enshrined in law, such as that relating to the limit on the number of persons who can travel in a lift, and the legal obligation on places of entertainment to publicise that they are licensed by the fire authority to accommodate only a certain number of people. One might think also of the notices displaying the prices in bars or restaurants, but that is to move away from the serious issue of reducing casualties. I will not speculate on the causes of the Cannon Street disaster because it is the subject of an inquiry. All railway and plane crashes should be the subject of an open inquiry as quickly as possible, so that their cause can be identified. I take the view that prosecution is a secondary issue and that the matter of first primary importance is to determine how and why a disaster occurred. One reason why buffer crashes cause a large number of injuries and, sadly, sometimes death, is that passengers have the freedom to open the door of the train while it is still moving and to stand in the door frame. If the train comes to a sudden halt even when it is travelling at only 5 mph, any person who does that is at serious risk of suffering extra injury. I shall not cross- question my hon. Friend the Minister about whether he thinks that train doors should have a sign warning of that danger, but even general awareness of the risk does not stop people taking it. Therefore, we must respect my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea for taking a limited approach. It is not meant as an all-singing, all-dancing Bill ; it is aimed at filling gaps in the provision of information to the travelling public. It is part of the nature of life that people may eventually take such information for granted. One reason for having parliamentary debates of this kind is not just to give guidance to public administrators, safety inspectors and others and to attempt to change the law, but to educate the media, which are the source of information for the majority of people. That is illustrated by the importance of advertisements and editorial publicity relating to product recalls for safety reasons, whether the product be an anorak or a motor car.It is the unusual which gains most attention. Disasters such as King's Cross or Kegworth, both of which I attended with sadness, are unusual, but if they have the effect of prompting people to travel by road instead of by rail or plane, that will lead to more rather than fewer casualties.
While we are giving illustrative examples about some of the crashes and disasters in the air and on the road, we need to recognise that if the distance travelled on the roads were switched to the airways, instead of 5,400 deaths there would have been 650, and if all the miles travelled on the roads were switched to the railways there would have been only 150 deaths last year.
Sometimes we spend our time considering how to spend hundreds of millions of pounds to try to save a few lives and turn our back on issues that will predictably affect hundreds of thousands of people this year, and which we could change at virtually no cost. As a public authority, we should put a sign outside the Palace of Westminster saying that if people cycle out of
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here without a cycle helmet, they have a 60 per cent. greater chance of dying if they are in a crash, because80 per cent. of cyclists die in crashes in which only their head is injured. Medical research has shown that in 80 per cent. of those cases, their lives could have been saved by wearing a crash helmet. I shall not make this point directly to the hon. Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing), who I know is a cyclist, but I think that we have some responsibility when we know that people leave here relatively unprotected. Wearing a helmet is an example of how people can reduce their own risk. Often that is less exciting than having arguments in our professional lives about our responsibility to others. If we are to have a culture of hazard reduction we need to consider all aspects of safety issues.I would make a similar point to authorities that provide cars for people to travel in. One of the curiosities about my move from the Department of Employment to the Department of Transport was that at the former I was driven around in cars with rear seat belts, whereas when I was at the Department of Transport and was supposed to be exhorting people to wear seat belts, my replacement car had no rear seat belts and it took two weeks to have them put in.
Rear seat belts provide protection and can cut out two thirds of the risk of injury to the wearer. Under the provisions of my hon. Friend's Bill, the Government car service should put a sign in every Minister's car stating that the rear seat belt provided will reduce the wearer's risk of injury in a crash by two thirds and will halve the passenger's risk of injuring the driver. As an unrestrained projectile hitting the driver, who will be wearing a seat belt, the passenger is unnecessarily adding to the risk to someone else at work. However, that provision is not likely to be made in the Bill because it is unfashionable to be concerned with practical, low- cost measures to reduce casualties on the roads, although that is as important as some of the other issues that have been mentioned. I support my hon. Friend's intentions in the Bill, although I do not know whether it is the right way to achieve them, but that can be considered in Committee. My hon. Friend rightly wishes to let people act and behave in the full knowledge of what is happening. He is providing that people will not be unnecessarily ignorant. A journalist in the Financial Times, Christian Tyler, who was describing an Austrian scientist, quoted him as saying that the biggest problem is not AIDS--although that is important--but AIGS, which stands for apathy, ignorance, greed and stupidity. My hon. Friend's Bill is aimed mainly at the apathy, and provides that if a risk is known to some people it should be made known to other people, if there is
"a substantial threat of danger to the health or safety of a member of the public."
The Bill will affect many Government Departments. From my experience of studying the responsibility map of the Health and Safety Commission, let alone the Health and Safety Executive and the various Government Departments with an interest in such matters, I doubt whether there will be unanimity that the provisions in the Bill are a good idea or that it is a good idea for information to be shared by everyone. Fortunately, at the moment I do not have to concern myself with that, because I am a supporter, rather than a member, of the Government.
If the Bill is successful this year, people who have been less than enthusiastic will recognise that it has no dangers
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for them and has some benefit for the public. If the Bill does not manage to progress instantly, I hope that Ministers who believe that it is either of neutral or positive benefit will see whether it is possible to incorporate it in the general programme of work of the Health and Safety Executive.A clause was inserted in the Health and Safety at Work, etc. Act 1974 by the hon. Member for Bradford, South (Mr. Cryer). One cannot use the Health and Safety at Work, etc. Act to reduce the level of safety available to people. I suspect that where information is known, it could be caught by the Act, although it would be a rather more administratively cumbersome way of making progress. Most of the regulations in the Act could incorporate some of the responsibilities that my hon. Friend would put on others.
People look for comparative information. That applies to product liability just as much as to safety. I shall not speak for too long about product liability, because it is not relevant to the Bill. However, I am still trying to persuade motor cycle manufacturers to make leg protectors available on their bikes, especially those ridden by people in their early years of motor cycling. That would cut out two thirds of the risk of serious leg injury in crashes with cars. It would also probably eliminate two thirds of cycling injuries. Yet not one motor cycle or moped manufacturer makes that equipment available even as an option, although it has been demonstrated by the transport and road research laboratory to be effective. I hope that--if not under this Bill, under a similar Bill--every motor cycle will carry a notice stating, "It is known that it is technically possible to reduce the risk of injury in crashes but we have not chosen to make that option available."
Safety is not just about notices ; it is about people's dedication to carrying out their duty not to go beyond precise regulations and the requirements of their contract of employment to help people to move around safely. The hon. Member for Newham, South was right to say that it is necessary to stick to regulations in a positive sense.
I pay tribute to the staff on the railways and the roads. In the past two or three days, they have been doing all that they can to help people to move around safely. In these Siberian conditions they have not been fully successful, but hon. Members in the warm House of Commons Chamber should recognise the work of those who, probably through the hours of darkness, worked hard so that we could move around safely and make these points.
12.47 pm
Mr. Tony Lloyd (Stretford) : I thought that there was interest in this Bill from other quarters. Perhaps I am wrong.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Battersea (Mr. Bowis) on his Bill. The official Opposition are not opposed to the Bill and we shall do everything we can to ensure that it makes progress. I hope that it will receive unanimous support, but I am beginning to doubt whether it will.
We do not regard the Bill as a panacea. It is a necessary part, but not the major part, of several measures that are needed to ensure safety in the public domain. I shall refer later to some concerns that arise out of the Bill. In its recent policy document, the Labour party made it clear that it will fully support the concept of the right to information and that
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"Labour will give the travelling public the right to basic information about safety and security matters. This will complement Labour's proposed Freedom of Information Act."The Bill will at least save us some trouble if it is passed. It is important to recognise the role of information.
We have already heard accounts of many disasters that have taken place in recent years. We have just had the decade of disaster, central to which has been the role of central Government, who have underfunded public bodies, whether they be the Health and Safety Executive, various inspectorates or whatever else.
Mr. Forth : The hon. Gentleman said that the Health and Safety Executive is underfunded. On what basis does he make that serious charge? He must know that Dr. John Culler, the chairman of the Health and Safety Commission, is on record as saying recently that it has all the resources that it requires to carry out its responsibilities. How does the hon. Gentleman's serious allegation fit with that?
Mr. Lloyd : It fits because the Minister's quotes are wrong. Dr. Culler said that its resources are sufficient for it to carry out its programme of works, which is not the same as carrying out its responsibilities. I have said in this place and elsewhere that I do not believe that the Health and Safety Executive or the Health and Safety Commission are fulfilling the obligations that the Government have set them.
The director-general of the HSE recently made it clear that it can no longer respond to all complaints from the public. The Minister's claim that the standards of the HSE and the HSC are higher than in the past is not true.
I invite the Minister to arrange a debate on health and safety in Government time. It would be helpful for him to put the case as he sees it and for me to put the Opposition's case. I say that because I am conscious of the fact that it would not be right and proper to take up time in this debate, although those matters are of critical importance.
The Government have underfunded other public sector bodies, such as British Rail. Some disasters on British Rail have been a direct consequence of old and outdated rolling stock and equipment. At least part of the cause of the King's Cross disaster was that cost pressures bearing down on management were so tight that they were unable to make safety a priority. That was more than regrettable, and it was condemned by Labour Members. The Government are central to that series of disasters.
The House must recognise that the Government cannot run away from their responsibilities. I say that because, today, they will once again refuse to play their part by allowing even this fairly small measure. They will attempt to kill it off, by stealth possibly, as they did two years ago, when my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Smith) introduced a Bill. He was successful only because he was able to prove the dishonourable role that the Government had played.
Provision is made in the Health and Safety at Work, etc. Act 1974 for some of the measures that the hon. Member for Battersea is trying to introduce. I hope that the Minister will comment on that. Section 3(3) says :
"In such cases as may be prescribed, it shall be the duty of every employer and every self-employed person, in the prescribed circumstances and in the prescribed manner, to give to persons (not being his employees) who may be affected by the way in which he conducts his undertaking the
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prescribed information about such aspects of the way in which he conducts his undertaking as might affect their health or safety." That rather complex parliamentary language means that the Health and Safety Executive could impose on every employer a duty to ensure that members of the public are aware of when their health and safety may be affected by what happens at a place of work. That would clearly cover the tragic and disgraceful case of Paul Elvin, which was cited by the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes).That specific power was provided in an amendment to the Health and Safety at Work, etc. Bill. The amendment was tabled by Lord Whitelaw, who was leading for the Opposition. I understand that he persuaded the then Minister of State, Department of Employment, who is now the Chairman of Ways and Means, to accept the amendment, because it was agreed on an all- party basis that the provision of information was central to safety at the place of work and to providing a safe place of work for employees and for the general public. I hope that the Minister will reflect on that and agree that something that was acceptable to Lord Whitelaw all those years ago should now be acceptable to him when he addresses the wider issues involved in this Bill.
I have some concerns about the way in which the Bill would operate in practice. I do not say that with any hostility. I recognise that, in order to have safety, we need more than just the provision of information. Information is vital to the structure, but we need more than just information.
I dealt with a problem in my area not so long ago, involving the traffic commissioner in the north-west. I will not mention the name of the bus company concerned, but I can say that, after a time, it got its act together and began to put safer buses on the road. The traffic commissioner became aware that that company was operating unsafe buses which presented a danger to the travelling public. He decided not to prohibit the operation of those buses ; he allowed those dangerous buses to run. I entered into lengthy correspondence with Mr. Albu, who was the commissioner concerned, and with Ministers. They all seemed to think that it was perfectly reasonable for unsafe buses to ply the roads of Manchester.
I believe that Mr. Albu had been frightened off when he lost, on appeal, previous attempts to restrain the activities of a particular bus company. I place that on record, because, like the hon. Member for Battersea, I believe that it is important that we scrutinise our public officials. Those officials should be aware that if they make decisions that are open to criticism, they will rightly deserve that criticism when the decisions become public. The traffic commissioner to whom I have referred failed in his responsibilities to the travelling public.
If we apply the powers under the Bill, that same traffic commissioner could decide not to move on to the public notice stage. In effect, he could decide that his decision not to prohibit the running of the buses could be open to such criticism that he would be foolish to signal that he had taken that decision by insisting that the operator gave public notice of the fact that its buses were less than safe.
I hope that the hon. Member for Battersea will accept that that analogy applies not just to transport undertakers,
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but across the range. At the margin, such action could constrain the behaviour of safety regimes if they are left to operate as they do now--underfunded and demoralised.We must consider the relationship between central Government and the statutory bodies that are designed to ensure safety in Britain. We do not have a safety culture and safety is not deemed to be automatic. For example, Which? recently published a survey of ferries. I was involved from the Opposition Front Bench in the Herald of Free Enterprise affair. That massive tragedy caused the deepest agonising among hon. Members on all sides of the House. It should now be impossible for a passenger-carrying ferry operator to operate ferries that are not completely safe.
However, the Which? report made it clear that six ferries using British ports still rely on passengers climbing down rope ladders to life rafts as a primary means of evacuation. Which? points out that those companies are operating within the letter of the law ; they break no laws by using that mechanism. It is not a procedure which would allow the publication of a notice such as that enshrined in the Bill. The ferry operators breach the principle of safety but no other principle.
As long as the Department of Transport is prepared to conspire with the ferry operators to allow them to operate ferries in an unsafe way, no provision of information will get over that immediate hurdle. That is central to safety in Britain. At present, we simply cannot trust the regulatory agencies. That is a serious challenge, which I make in full knowledge of what I say. The regulatory safety bodies now in existence simply are not doing the job that the travelling public and other people are entitled to demand.
Until we begin properly to resource regulatory safety bodies and make safety paramount at the place of work and wherever the public confront potential danger, we shall not have the climate and culture of safety which the House should demand. If we do not have a structure, especially in the Health and Safety Executive, within which reports on disasters or even accidents that do not lead to tragedy are monitored, the safe working practices which we are entitled to demand will not be translated into practice.
The attention of the House has already been drawn to the Clapham disaster. There is no doubt that faulty wiring had occurred previously on an almost outrageous scale. The attention of British Rail had been drawn to those faults on several occasions. It was not a new problem. It is also clear that safety reports had been examined by British Rail. The inquiry made it clear that the problem was a failure to disseminate the information sufficiently widely. A secondary, but equally important, problem is that there was no mechanism or public body within either the Health and Safety Executive or the Department of Transport that could ask British Rail precisely what it had done to implement the conclusions of previous safety reports. That is fundamental.
The Minister could come to the Dispatch Box today and do two things. First, he could say that he intended to implement section 3(3) of the Health and Safety at Work, etc. Act 1974 and make sure that information is made available to the public now. There is no need for today's Bill to be passed for him to do that. He could do it today.
Secondly, the Minister could tell the Health and Safety Commission that he expects it immediately to set up within the HSE a mechanism for monitoring previous safety
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reports. If he does that, he will take a significant step forward for the safety of people both at work and generally. I challenge him to do that.If we are to create a climate of safety it is important that we have in place penalties for those who transgress safety regulations. Reference has been made to various disasters. It is clear that those who were culpable in those disasters were not brought before the courts in a way that exposed them to penalties that would serve as a warning and a sanction to others, and would show the severity with which the House and society treat transgressions of regulations which put health and safety at risk.
During a recent Question Time, my hon. Friend the Member for Burnley (Mr. Pike) referred to Holts Plastics. My hon. Friend said that the case had gone as far as the courts allowed. The judge made some condemnatory statements about one of the partners. The transcript shows that the judge made it clear that he found himself unable to pass the sentence that he wished to pass because the wrong person was before the court. He gave a prison sentence but suspended it for a considerable time.
There is still no case of any individual serving a custodial sentence for breach of health and safety legislation. I am not one to argue for long prison sentences for the sake of them, but, as in other areas of criminal law, custodial sentences show the sincerity and seriousness of the attitude of the House to those who break the law. Health and safety and placing someone's life or health at risk should be treated sufficiently seriously that those who transgress face long prison sentences. I make it clear from the Dispatch Box that the Labour Government will make sure that such penalties are used.
There is much in the Bill that we welcome. I do not intend to continue at length, although there are more points worth putting on record. My hon. Friends, the hon. Member for Battersea, and his hon. Friends have already made some valuable points. I am concious of the fact that there may be an attempt to kill the Bill by stealth today. I hope that the Minister will consider long and hard before he takes part in such an attempt.
I remind the Minister of the role of his predecessor, the hon. Member for Teignbridge (Mr. Nicholls), who was caught with his hand in the till, so to speak, two years ago, when my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Smith) introduced a similar Bill. The then Under- Secretary of State for Employment wrote a letter to the Leader of the House which made it clear that his Department intended to frustrate both the House and the Bill. I see that the Minister is now receiving something that will enable him to respond properly. The letter made it clear that the then Minister intended to frustrate that Bill, which dealt with safety and, ironically, as a result allowed my hon. Friend to push through his legislation.
I remind the Minister of the comments of the Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry. As a former Trade and Industry Minister, the hon. Gentleman may have some sympathy with them. In the foreword to the 12th annual home accident surveillance system report, the Under-Secretary wrote :
"The starting point for working to prevent consumer accidents is good information."
What is essential to one Under-Secretary--a willingness to insist that information is central to providing a safe and healthy working regime and safe and healthy access to public facilities--should be taken on board by another. I
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hope that the Minister will make it clear that he does not intend to talk out the Bill by drawing the debate out to2.30 pm. The Opposition support the Bill and wish the hon. Member for Battersea all speed with it.1.7 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. Eric Forth) : The concern for the important subject matter of those who have participated in the debate is obvious from the tone of the debate. I pay a warm tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Mr. Bowis) for using the privilege of his place high in the ballot to bring such an important issue before the House. The contributions that we have heard from hon. Members of all parties show that he has done no more than reflect a view that is widely held among all hon. Members. It has been demonstrated that he was right to reflect that concern in such a Bill.
I am stating the obvious, but it is worth noting that in many cases the contributions of hon. Members have reflected their direct involvement, at different times and in different ways, in disasters and catastrophes such as those described to us. It is understandable that for those who have been involved, whether as Members of Parliament or, in the case of my hon. Friend the Member for Eltham (Mr. Bottomley), as a Minister, with people whose lives have been touched by disaster, the emotions generated are that much more powerful. That has been apparent in the speeches that we have heard today. Anyone who reads the report of today's proceedings will have no doubt of the extent to which the tragedies and losses felt by so many people have been expressed in this place. That is as it should be.
In that spirit, I will as carefully as I can pick my way through what is a very difficult proposition for the Government--to respond properly to my hon. Friend's Bill and the issues that it raises. Before doing that, I want to do something that may seem rather tedious. I want to read out some short extracts from the Bill so that they are on the record and so that we can relate the contributions that have been made today to the Bill. Many hon. Members who have spoken, including some of my hon. Friends, have not fully understood what the Bill seeks to do. Many of them have expressed concerns and suggested that the Bill, once on the statute book, would resolve the problems that they have presented to the House. I believe that they are wrong. My hon. Friend the Member for Battersea may wish to correct me. Clause 1(2) states :
"This Act applies to premises, being--
(a) land or buildings other than nuclear installations
or
(b) any means of transport,
to which members of the public are admitted, either on payment of a fee or otherwise."
The Bill operates primarily on premises and means of transport. It continues :
"In this Act information on a matter of public safety is information identified by a relevant statutory authority concerned with matters of public health and safety".
Many hon. Members who have spoken today have suggested that, in some way, information that is already available, in almost any form, will be dealt with by the Bill, but that is not so. The Bill refers to information identified by the relevant statutory authority. I hope that hon. Members present today will bear that in mind when they contemplate the Bill and decide how to react to it.
Clause 2 states :
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"Where the authority"----the relevant statutory authority--
"has determined that there is a substantial threat or danger to the health or safety of the public, it shall serve upon the occupier of the premises concerned a written warning"
The Bill then sets out the detailed provisions.
I shall return later to the tragic case mentioned by the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes), involving a constituent of his at Euston station. I want to give the House a little background information to that case. I am convinced that the Bill would not have made any material difference to that case, had it been in force at that time.
Mr. Lloyd : Will the Minister comment on my earlier point that section 3(3) of the existing Health and Safety at Work, etc. Act 1974 would have covered precisely the case mentioned by the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey? Could not the Minister bring that section into effect immediately?
Mr. Forth : I do not believe that that section would cover that case. I am advised by officials in the Health and Safety Executive that it would not. This is neither the time nor the place to be diverted into the esoterics of the Health and Safety at Work, etc. Act, although I realise that it is of prime importance. However, I shall undertake to consider the matter again, as the hon. Gentleman asks, to see whether there is any scope within that Act to do what the Bill seeks to achieve. I am advised at present--I will consider the matter further--that it will not have the effect that the hon. Gentleman suggests.
Mr. Lloyd : Will the Minister undertake to place that advice on the public record if the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey asks for it in a written question?
Mr. Forth : It goes without saying that, whenever any hon. Member puts down a written question to me or to any other Minister, he receives a full, prompt and direct answer, as would be the case here. I do not wish to be diverted into that case, because, although it is important, I am not sure that it is germane to the provisions of the Bill as laid before the House today.
I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea and I will not fall out over the Bill at this stage. As I understand the procedures of the House--I am open to correction--the purpose of today's debate is to consider the text of the Bill as printed and to decide whether to give it a Second Reading.
My hon. Friend told the House in his excellent opening speech that in discussions with me and others he has already identified areas in which the Bill might be improved, and that is certainly true. It can indeed be improved. Today I intend to stick to the Bill as printed, despite our discussions, because that is the only basis upon which we can proceed. We all know the fragile nature of private Members' legislation. Whatever Members may say about the Whips' role, at least they impart a certain degree of predictability to what may happen to legislation. I do not want to go into details that might embarrass my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, North-East (Mr. Kirkhope), but I can reveal that with effective whipping we can at least structure the progress of legislation and give it
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a certain predictability--too much predictability, Opposition Members might think, but they would not think like that if our roles were reversed.The difficulty with private Members' legislation is that once a Bill goes into Committee it is subject to the free will of Members of Parliament, acting as individuals, representing their consciences and constituents. That sounds good--at least I hope it does--but it renders unpredictable what may happen to a Bill.
I cite as evidence of this what the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey said. The hon. Gentleman will have noticed how carefully I listened to his speech. He expressed a wish that the Bill should go further than it does. If the Bill goes into Committee by decision of the House there will those on the Committee, like the hon. Gentleman, who want to go further--
Mr. Bowis : Just as my hon. Friend has said that he will follow the usual rules and not consider amendments that I have announced, I hope that he will not dwell too much on admendments that no one has announced or claimed that they want to table. After discussions with my hon. Friend and his colleagues about the amendments that I have in mind, I offer the Minister my pledge that if I do not table them in Committee, he will do so and I will support him ; and if the Committee overrides them, I will support my hon. Friend on Report.
Mr. Forth : As ever, my hon. Friend is kind and generous. Of course I will not talk speculatively about amendments which may not be made to the Bill ; I shall talk about the Bill as printed. I cannot acknowledge what my hon. Friend has said about amendments to the Bill today because we cannot be certain that the Bill would emerge in that form, even given my hon. Friend's undertakings. He might table amendments in Committee, and I might want to support them, but we can only act as individuals there. But other hon. Members can do as they please and judge best in Committee--
Mr. Peter Bottomley rose--
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