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Workplace Temperatures

I fully agree and I will come on to that point. I think that that approach reflects a climate of opinion that has developed in Government and across parties too at the moment. Let me just briefly go through the arguments that Mr. Kemp has put forward. He argues that thermal comfort depends on a number of factors and that setting an upper limit would be counter-productive from a health and safety perspective. I fail to understand that argument. This is not an issue where we are saying that there must be only a maximum temperature and nothing else. What we are saying is that there must be a maximum temperature that exists alongside a series of other measures that recognise the differentiations that exist in different sectors and also different individuals' perception of thermal comfort. Mr. Kemp also said that scientific evidence does not point to a value for a maximum recommended temperature. Well, it is true that people feel heat differently, but they also feel pain and cold differently, and yet in those cases we have been able to put into practice maximum ranges that no employer should allow their work force to be vulnerable to. Again, I find it extremely difficult to accept that argument. It gives the employer maximum discretion but leaves the employee largely unprotected. Another argument is that""there is no evidence that thermal discomfort is a significant workplace hazard."" Our surveys demonstrate that it is. The fact that the HSE is not recording incidents properly and not prosecuting reflects weaknesses within the HSE system. Every other survey undertaken has indicated that thermal discomfort is a significant workplace hazard that needs to be addressed. Another argument, which has been mentioned in this debate, is that the introduction of a maximum temperature would be costly to employers. The HSE and the Department are engaging in an impact assessment to consider the costs of introducing a maximum temperature associated with measures necessary to produce thermal comfort in the workplace. That argument has been used for decades to prevent developments in health and safety. I want to speak on behalf of the good employers. At the moment, bad employers are making good employers vulnerable. Bad employers can inflict thermal discomfort and risk on their work force by cutting costs, which also allows them to undercut good employers in the pricing of their products. That has always been the case with issues of health and safety. Regulation tries to create a level playing field for everybody. However, there are costs involved at the moment for all of us as we pay into the national health service for the treatment of people enduring and suffering from the lack of a maximum temperature. They are vulnerable to working in unsafe environments, and it has an impact on their health. The report failed to come to grips with the reality of the working environment endured by members of the bakers union and other workers across a range of sectors. My hon. Friend the Member for Luton, North hit on one reason for the resistance to a maximum temperature. We must understand it in the context of what has happened in health and safety over the past 20 years or so. There has been a stepping back from establishing clarity in the regulatory regime for the workplace. We have moved towards risk assessments, which is setting us back decades. The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions recently stated that""the UK has one of the best health and safety records in the world"." That is not the case any more. I do not like to say it, but it is true. In the global health and safety risk index 2009, the UK came 30th out of the 176 countries listed. Among OECD nations, we are ranked 20th. The true picture is that in many instances we are falling back rather than going forward. Professor Steve Tombs and Dr. David Whyte have identified a lack of reporting. In some instances, as many as 80 per cent. of accidents and even fatalities at work related to the working environment are not reported. Andrew Watterson from the university of Stirling has argued that due to a lack of publication even of fatalities and their links to ill health, the number of people who die from occupational diseases is dramatically underestimated, as is the impact—particularly the long-term impact—of the working environment on health. The issue also relates to what has happened to the HSE itself. Cuts have been made to the HSE's overall expenditure, resulting in a fall in prosecutions. The overall picture since 1997-98 is that HSE prosecutions have declined by 32 per cent. and local authority prosecutions on health and safety grounds have declined by 34 per cent. Inspections by the field operations directorate, the HSE's largest inspecting section, have decreased by 26 per cent. and regulatory contacts fell by 19 per cent. between 2003 and 2004-05, the latest date for which I have figures. HSE investigations of major injuries fell by 43 per cent. between 2001-02 and 2006-07. In 2006-07, the HSE investigated only one third as many three-day injuries as in 2001-02. Not only are the regulations not clear, inspections, prosecutions and regulatory visits have declined dramatically.