---

Workplace Temperatures

I apologise for missing the start of the debate. It was due not to high temperatures, but merely a broken-down bus. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr. Brady. I congratulate the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) on initiating this debate. This is an important issue in which, as he is aware, I have taken some interest. In response to a parliamentary question I asked the Minister last year, he said that over the previous four years there had been 53 incidents in which high temperatures were a major problem, including one in which there was a fatality. In the context of the number of industrial injuries that occur every year, that is a relatively low figure, but it is nevertheless significant. Like the hon. Members for Hayes and Harlington and for Luton, North (Kelvin Hopkins), I find it difficult to understand and accept the arguments made by the Department and the Health and Safety Executive as to why we do not have a maximum operating temperature. In certain jobs, such as work in bakeries and foundries, high temperatures are a problem that affects the workers. For many office workers, it is important that there is a maximum temperature. When my hon. Friend the Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson) asked a parliamentary question last year about what the House authorities recommended as the maximum operating temperature, I was surprised that the reply from my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Nick Harvey) was that they work on the basis that it should be 21° C. If that is an acceptable temperature for Members of Parliament and their staff, we ought to set maximum temperatures for everybody else. I understand the approach the HSE has taken in dealing with the range of factors that affect people's ability to work, but the same argument ought to apply to the minimum temperature. We have statutory minimum temperatures of 16° C for people working in a sedentary position and 13° C for those doing physical work. There is a range of conditions at the colder end of the scale that affect a person's comfort. The same argument should apply to the maximum temperature. In a parliamentary answer that I received last year, the Minister said that the Department had asked the HSE to undertake a review and consult stakeholders. I was therefore looking forward to seeing the same sorts of controls. Whether for a minimum or a maximum temperature, there will always be discussion about what constitutes discomfort. The importance of the minimum or maximum temperature is that it sets the bare limit to which everyone is entitled at work. During a review, the HSE sent out a questionnaire with a closing date of 11 February. I do not know if that is the issue to which the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington referred.