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Health and Safety (Offences) Bill

My hon. Friend raises an important point. There is no doubt that the nature of employment has changed from heavy industries towards service industries. In accepting that, we need to recognise two things. First, even working in an office is not quite as safe as we may sometimes think. There is repetitive strain injury and strain induced by using computer screens, along with other hazards that we take for granted—tripping hazards, for example. In the health service, severe prosecutions have been brought in respect of injuries caused to staff. I believe that we have also started to see prosecutions being brought in connection with stress on the work force. A couple of years ago, the Health and Safety Executive brought what I think was the first prosecution of that sort against a health trust somewhere in the west country. I stand to be corrected, but I believe that was the first time a prosecution was brought over stress-related illness. My hon. Friend is absolutely right about the significant change in the nature of industry, within which a whole new raft of hazards in the workplace, particularly stress-induced health hazards, need to be taken into account. At the same time, in the traditional industries, new machinery and new chemicals are presenting new hazards. Indeed, some of the older chemicals have proved to be hazardous in a way that was not originally understood. The explosion of asbestos claims is a good example. Forty or 50 years ago, people did not think that asbestos was much of a problem; but they do now, and we have seen a raft of similar conditions starting to work their way through the system. Let me deal with the other issue that arises from what my hon. Friend said. The Health and Safety Executive is responsible for prosecutions in factories and building sites, but prosecution in respect of shops and offices is a matter for the local authority. I am afraid that local authorities are very poor when it comes to the amount of effort and resources they can put into prosecution. My right hon. Friend’s Bill does not draw a distinction between prosecutions brought by local authority enforcement agencies and those brought by the Health and Safety Executive. The Bill provides for stronger sentences under the Health and Safety at Work, etc. Act wherever the offence is committed, but we know from statistics that the prosecutions brought by local authorities are few and far between. That brings me back to my earlier point about publicity, so I hope that my right hon. Friend will ensure that local authority chief executives are notified of these significantly stronger consequences that flow from prosecution, which should incentivise local authorities to take their responsibilities more seriously and bring prosecutions more frequently where appropriate, which they may not have done in the past. I hope that the Bill will incentivise local authorities to step up their enforcement activities more generally. So far, as I said, they have been lax. The sanction system simply does not provide a suitable deterrent for breaches of health and safety law, so the strengthening of sanctions is long overdue. It cannot be right when implementing health and safety systems can cost more than the fines that apply to them. Unfortunately, the fines are sometimes far less, with the net result that the employer can make more money by breaking the law than complying with it. It cannot be right for that to become simply part of the business risk—an assessment of how much it will cost to fix the machine as opposed to how much it will cost in fines if a finger is chopped off. That must be corrected. The stronger penalties in the Bill will go a long way towards achieving that. Conscientious companies that take health and safety seriously should not be penalised by rogue companies receiving paltry fines. Profitability should never be part of the equation, because people’s lives and livelihoods are at stake. In that context, perhaps I might pick up a point that has been made several times today in relation to offences under section 7 of the Health and Safety at Work, etc. Act. The early sections of that Act set out offences, and section 33 relates to prosecution. Speaking from memory, section 7 provides for the prosecution of an employee. It should be borne in mind that the duties in the Act are, of course, not absolute; the duty is only to take steps"““so far as is reasonably practicable””." That in itself has been a cause of concern to those of us who dealt with health and safety in our previous lives. It is not a very high standard, so we are not asking employers to do a great deal. The provision is not to take steps ““so far as is practicable””, which is a higher standard, and it is not the absolute standard that we thought would be imposed under six-pack regulations, which will, in large part, be subject to reasonableness tests. On section 7 offences, the issue comes down to whether it is appropriate for the employee to be subject to the same penalties as the employer. I take some exception to what my right hon. Friend has proposed in that respect. Should the worker—the building-site labourer—face the same penalty as the multi-millionaire company owner? Is that fair or right? That is not to say that prosecution is not appropriate in the right sort of cases. Only a few dozen cases a year, if that, are prosecuted against employees directly. Usually, they are for more serious breaches such as the persistent refusal to wear goggles, which I mentioned earlier. It would be very unfair if employees were to be scapegoated and prosecuted for the failings of their employers. The cases that come to mind are one or two of the train crash cases, in which the train driver was prosecuted. I think that my right hon. Friend may be aware of those cases from experiences in his previous life. I think that it was in the case of the Clapham train crash that the train driver was prosecuted. I think that in the end, a long time later, he was exonerated, but I may be wrong about that. Similarly, in the Zeebrugge ferry disaster, employees were prosecuted for the failings of the system imposed by P&O. The ferry disaster is perhaps a better example; the company was prosecuted for corporate manslaughter, and the prosecution failed. However, the ship’s captain and some of the seamen on the ship were prosecuted for offences, which I thought very unfair. It would be a bit disproportionate if they were to face significantly higher penalties as a result of my right hon. Friend’s Bill, but of course I would not oppose his Bill just because it raised that concern. The fact is that an employee on indictment could still face significant penalties.