Two companies have been prosecuted under section 7 of the Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations since 1992.

The information requested is not collated centrally in a readily retrievable format and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.

HSE does not specify a level of temperature in the workplace that would exceed that considered reasonable. It would not be appropriate to give a single maximum figure as it depends on the work activity and the environmental conditions of the work place.

On 3 October 2013, the former Minister for Employment, my hon. Friend the Member for Fareham (Mr Hoban), agreed to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) publishing a revised Approved Code of Practice and guidance on the Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992. This contains clear information and guidance on employers' responsibilities to maintain reasonable temperatures in the workplace.

HSE's published Enforcement Policy Statement applies to this area, and I have not issued any specific guidance on enforcement measures in relation to workplace temperatures.

The Met Office published its first experimental decadal forecast in 2007 and has issued updates looking five to ten years ahead on its web site since December 2009; no update to the initialised forecast was supplied to DECC in 2008. These forecasts are not intended to predict a particular year's global temperature as year-to-year variations in global temperature are dominated by the effects of the El Nino Southern Oscillation, which is not predictable more than a year ahead. Instead, they aim to forecast slow fluctuations in the climate system over the next few years.

Nevertheless, values for individual years can be extracted and the very first forecast, made in 2007, suggested that 2013 would likely be 0.53 to 0.89 degrees C (90% confidence) warmer than the 1961 to 1990 average. No equivalent estimate is currently available for 2018 as the latest five-year forecast, issued in December 2012, is for the period 2013 to 2017¹. However, this shows that the Earth is expected to maintain the record warmth that has been observed over the last decade, with the possibility that new record global temperatures may be reached in the next five years.

Met Office five-year forecasts are assessed once the verifying observations are available.¹

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/news/decadal-forecasting

The Met Office published its first experimental decadal forecast in 2007 and has issued updates looking five to ten years ahead on its web site since December 2009; no update to the initialised forecast was supplied to DECC in 2008. These forecasts are not intended to predict a particular year's global temperature as year-to-year variations in global temperature are dominated by the effects of the El Nino Southern Oscillation, which is not predictable more than a year ahead. Instead, they aim to forecast slow fluctuations in the climate system over the next few years.

Nevertheless, values for individual years can be extracted and the very first forecast, made in 2007, suggested that 2013 would likely be 0.53 to 0.89 degrees C (90% confidence) warmer than the 1961 to 1990 average. No equivalent estimate is currently available for 2018 as the latest five-year forecast, issued in December 2012, is for the period 2013 to 2017¹. However, this shows that the Earth is expected to maintain the record warmth that has been observed over the last decade, with the possibility that new record global temperatures may be reached in the next five years.

Met Office five-year forecasts are assessed once the verifying observations are available.¹

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/news/decadal-forecasting

The world has warmed by about 0.8 degrees Celsius since the 19th century¹. This warming was reported to be statistically significant by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), in Section 3.2 of its Fourth Assessment Working Group I Report.

Met Office (2013). The recent pause in global warming (1); What do observations of the climate system tell us?

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/media/pdf/e/f/Paper1_Observing_changes_in_the_climate_system.PDF

The Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992, which cover most spaces in schools, require that the temperature in all workplaces inside buildings is reasonable during working hours. While the Approved Code of Practice, which accompanies these regulations, does say that the temperature in workrooms should normally be at least 16 degrees Celsius, it does not indicate what a maximum temperature should be.

There are no plans to introduce a maximum temperature in schools.

The code of practice for the prevention and treatment of climactic injuries in the armed forces for land based activities, including training, exercises and operations, is contained in the Joint Service Publication (JSP) 539.

The heat injury/illness sections of the JSP are kept under regular review by the Heat Injuries Working Group: this working group has representatives from all three services as well as subject matter experts.

The JSP was revised fully in 2012 and published in November 2012.