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Workplace Temperatures

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this morning, Mr. Brady. I congratulate the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) on securing the debate and on his extremely well-informed and considered opening speech. As hon. Members will have gathered, he has long campaigned on the subject and has raised it many times in questions and debates. As he made clear, he has also been the author of early-day motions that have attracted the signatures of a considerable number of hon. Members. Most recently, on 15 December 2009, early-day motion 491 attracted the signatures of 48 hon. Members. If a large number of hon. Members pen their name to an early-day motion, the matter should be taken seriously. The hon. Gentleman set out in a proper way some of the problems that can arise from exposure to high temperatures and made the case for a maximum temperature. Certainly those are all issues that must be addressed and I will turn to that matter in a moment. We are also indebted to the hon. Member for Luton, North (Kelvin Hopkins) who made some important points, including a crucial remark about individual sensitivity to heat. He spoke with the authority of someone who, as we learned today, comes from a long line of bakers. Both hon. Gentlemen have made it clear that, as with many other factors in the workplace, there can be no doubt that high temperatures can pose health and safety issues in the workplace in certain circumstances. As was also made clear, the Health and Safety Executive receives complaints about high temperatures in the workplace and, sadly, a small number of accidents at work in recent years have occurred because of the exposure of individuals to high temperatures at work. Very sadly—this was adverted to—there was one fatality as a result of exposure to high temperatures in 2006-07. On going through the figures, I note that, compared with the numbers for other years, a cluster of injuries and one fatality occurred during 2006-07. Twelve major injuries resulted from exposure to heat in that year, as well as the fatality. I am not drawing things together, but I notice that the Health and Safety Executive has instituted legal proceedings over that fatality.