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Health and Safety (Offences) Bill

I am sorry that I am upsetting Opposition Front Benchers, who are getting excited about what is happening in Ireland. The fact remains that Mr. O’Neill is a shining example of how, under good and creative management, the penalties in the Bill become less necessary. Alas, many people do not share his point of view. For example, Corus, now owned by Tata, which is the principal steel employer in my constituency—it is doing well and is setting on extra shifts, because British industry is doing better than people realise at the moment—starts any presentation with the accident rate in its workplace. We need to ensure that that culture, which already exists in the best British firms, becomes much more widespread. Earlier, we heard mention of the fact that although 26 per cent. of British GDP is produced by industrial production, 70 per cent. is produced by the service industry. It is now in the so-called service industries—such as transport and delivery—where many of the worst accidents happen. For example, they are caused by the white van boys who cut corners. In the companies, from newspaper offices to others, that are based on data input, repetitive strain injury is a real problem. I remember that when RSI first arose as an issue in newsrooms, employers and editors simply dismissed it. They suggested that their journalists should type a little less and have a break or two or a drink now and then, but RSI reduced men and women to agony. They would be unable to open a bottle of milk or to use a can opener as that very worrying industrial injury, which people did not recognise, suddenly took hold. I believe that if this law had been in place during the 1980s and early 1990s, it would have been possible for employees to use it to send out clear messages much earlier on that RSI was a real industrial workplace injury. Over time, employers, in particular in the media industry—about which I know a lot as a former president of the National Union of Journalists—accepted that RSI was a genuine workplace problem and that they would have to start treating it as an industrial injury, not as a bit of malingering or an example of people who could not be bothered to do all the typing that was required, especially on the new keyboards as the electronic technology came in. I hope that the Bill, once it becomes law, will give clear signals to employers up and down the country that they could face penalties, including imprisonment, if they do not work to improve health and safety in all areas of their employer responsibility. In the wider borough of Rotherham, which covers Rother Valley and Wentworth as well as the Rotherham constituency, we have about 4,000 VAT-registered firms. Most are small companies. Some are big, important firms such as Corus, Beatson Clark, Yorkshire Windows and other companies that take a very responsible approach to their work force, but some are small companies that have been created recently. Those small companies face an awful lot of cash-flow pressures, time-management pressures, employee-relation pressures and form-filling pressures. I accept and understand all that, but none of those pressures could ever be an excuse to cut corners on health and safety. That is why I hope that maximum publicity—not just a little story in the Financial Times—should be given across the country to the importance of my right hon. Friend’s Bill, just to make certain employers stop, pause and think. I accept what the hon. Member for South-West Bedfordshire said about employees’ responsibility. I made a TV film for the BBC once about health and safety at work. We went into the paint shop at Ford in Dagenham, which was a filthy place with fumes and the most disgusting atmosphere. All the men there had to wear spacesuit-type giant plastic helmets locked into a breathing apparatus before they could go into the paint shop. We filmed a man who had very calmly drilled a hole in the front of his plastic visor so that he could smoke through it while on the job. I cannot blame the managers of Ford for that lunatic who was embracing an early death. It is very responsible for us all to wear safety helmets and other safety gear if we ever go on to any industrial site. Sometimes we think that that is a bit crazy, and ask why we have to wear those glasses or that silly helmet, as the site is perfectly safe. Again, it is about sending out a signal, just as I wish that a certain former Member of this House might wear his crash helmet more often when he bikes around London to tell the children of London that wearing a helmet when they are on a bike is a very good idea. The Bill has passed through the House and I believe that it will be welcomed by all. It is an important step forward. I accept that it has received all-party support and I congratulate the hon. Member for South-West Bedfordshire, whose speeches I have read. His sincerity, his straightness, is not in question, even if some of us worry about the fate of the working people of this country if by some tragedy there was to be any change of Government. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Streatham, who is leaving the House at the next election—unless he is going off to pull some weird stunt by calling a by-election. I hope that his services are not lost to public life, and indeed to parliamentary life, but that is a matter for other Bills that may be before the House. It is a tribute to his service as a trade unionist that he leaves the House having piloted this measure on to the statute book. We cannot abolish workplace deaths and injuries, but if as a result of the Bill, in a few years’ time there are 100 rather than 241 deaths, and 15,000 rather than 24,000 injuries, there will be families that will honour the name of Keith Hill for generations to come.