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Mr. Gerald Howarth (Aldershot): Further to your ruling on that matter, Madam Speaker, which I did not know you were going to make--
Madam Speaker: I was asked to make a ruling.
Mr. Howarth: I did not realise that you would make a ruling today, Madam Speaker.
Madam Speaker: I always do things very speedily.
Mr. Howarth: Indeed, Madam Speaker. You always satisfy the requirements of the House.
As the Member responsible for ensuring that the motion was debated in the House on Monday--I objected to it last week--may I ask you for some clarification? Given that you have said that the Committee cannot amend the Bill, although it may comment on it, will there be another debate on Second Reading when the Bill comes back to the House, and will it go on Report; or is that in the hands of the House itself?
Madam Speaker:
That is what I have just said. What may or may not become of the Bill after the Committee completes its work is certainly not a matter for me; it is a matter for the Government.
Mr. Howarth:
On a different point of order, Madam Speaker. Last month, I raised the matter of the soldiers whose names were revealed by the Saville inquiry into
Today, the inquiry has issued a press release confirming that it has released the names of those soldiers--who served our country and put their lives at risk--for the first time since 1972, putting them into the public domain.
I seek your guidance, Madam Speaker. The inquiry is incompetent, but given that the Prime Minister has told me in a letter that the matter is nothing to do with him, even though he set up the inquiry, how on earth am I able to challenge that incompetence? Former members of the Parachute Regiment around the country and my constituents who are former members of the Parachute Regiment have absolutely no confidence whatever in the inquiry, but if I cannot tackle its incompetence through ministerial offices, how am I to deal with this matter, which is causing great expense to the public and seriously undermining confidence in the inquiry's fairness?
Madam Speaker:
I want to be as helpful as I can to the hon. Gentleman. May I consider what he has said and look at the report and the press release, which I have not seen and to which he refers me? May I take the opportunity of writing fully to him after I have considered all those aspects?
Mr. Howarth:
I am most grateful.
Mr. Quentin Davies (Grantham and Stamford):
On a point of order, Madam Speaker. Convention and statute law give the House a number of privileges. I know that you, and almost all Members of the House, feel strongly that it is important for the dignity and effectiveness of Parliament that those privileges should not be abused. One of those privileges is immunity from suits of libel or slander relating to what is said in the House. I am afraid that the remarks made by the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) a few moments ago, in which he accused a private citizen of being a drug runner without adducing any evidence whatever, were indeed an abuse of that kind.
Madam Speaker:
Order. I have been in the Chair since 2.30. I have heard exchanges across the Floor of the
Mr. John Bercow (Buckingham):
On a point of order, Madam Speaker. You will know that I was one of a number of Members who inquired about the procedure for the handling of the Railways Bill. I, among others, am very grateful for the guidance that you have given, and I understand that it is for the Government to decide on the future handling of Bills, but is it anticipated that there will be published or stated criteria according to which there will be either one or more than one debate on the Second Reading of a Bill? If Members do not know in advance whether there will be one or two debates on Second Reading, it will be very difficult for them to make any sort of judgment about the opportunities that they will have to contribute.
Madam Speaker:
As I thought I had explained in my very long answer to points of order, those are questions that could be put to the Leader of the House at business questions, or through the usual channels across the Floor of the House.
Mr. Tony Benn, supported by Mr. Harold Best,Mrs. Ann Cryer, Mr. Alan Simpson, Mr. Llew Smith, Audrey Wise, Mr. Mike Wood, Mr. Austin Mitchell, Mr. Kevin McNamara, Mr. Dennis Skinner, Mr. Bill Etherington and Mrs. Maria Fyfe, presented a Bill to make provision for the implementation in the laws of the United Kingdom of the rights in employment which are established by certain international instruments ratified by the United Kingdom: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time tomorrow, and to be printed [Bill 146].
Mr. Harry Cohen (Leyton and Wanstead):
I beg to move,
Tens of thousands of men in Britain and across Europe could do the same, because they have been exposed to asbestos dust, often through the negligence and malpractice of their employers and contractors. In this country, there are an estimated 3,000 asbestos-related deaths a year: from asbestosis, asbestos-related lung cancer and mesothelioma, a particularly nasty and painful form of cancer, for which prognosis for any form of recovery is very poor.
At a conference on asbestos-related diseases in 1997, Dr. John Moore-Gillon said:
Asbestos-related deaths have a long latency period--anything from 15 to 60 years from exposure to the deadly dust--so many of the murders of those who are still alive cannot be stopped. However, we can act now for the future. Many trade unions and health and public safety campaigners have long pressed for the law to be strengthened. To their credit, the Government have done that in a number of respects: they have introduced tighter regulations on asbestos licensing and exposure at work; and they have been negotiating hard for a Europe-wide ban on white chrysotile asbestos. Safer substitutes have now been scientifically established, so I hope that there will not be much more of a delay before white asbestos is banned in Britain and throughout the EU. If the date set for a total EU ban is some years ahead, I hope that that will not stop the Government announcing an immediate ban in this country.
Campaigners have also rightly pointed to the inadequacy of sentences delivered by the courts in cases involving negligent or malicious work with asbestos which places the lives and health of workers or innocent members of the public at risk. In a parliamentary answer
to me in April, the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions, my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield (Mr. Meale), said:
The first ever custodial sentence--three months--on a cowboy contractor for serious breaches of asbestos regulations was passed on Roy Hill by Bristol Crown court in January 1996. The second one, and the longest to date--nine months--was handed down to Paul Anthony Evans by Birmingham Crown court in September 1998. Despite not having a licence, Evans subcontracted the stripping of a factory roof of asbestos and its disposal. He hired a van and dumped 300 sacks of asbestos around the city. The court was told that some of the bags had been left open and others had burst on inspection, releasing the asbestos fibres into the air. Children were found playing with the asbestos, some of which had been dumped on a school playground and some near a supermarket. I do not think--nor, I suspect, do most members of the public, especially people in Birmingham--that nine months' imprisonment was a sufficient sentence.
Mr. Justice Scott Baker, in an important Court of Appeal judgment last November, set out for the first time a range of factors for determining penalties. However, as in earlier judgments, he still managed to reduce the penalty imposed on the guilty party. It is hard to believe, but those were advances.
Earlier this year, there was a significant setback in the shape of the judgment in the case of the Medley brothers--Neil Peter Medley and Andrew Craig Medley. Their company, Medleys Limited, employed schoolboys to remove asbestos tiles from the ceiling of AE Turbines of Yeadon, Leeds. They employed two 15-year-olds and a 14-year-old for that work, and they also pleaded guilty to undertaking asbestos work in an old boiler house without a licence, failing to leave the premises in a clean state to prevent the spread of the asbestos, and placing employees at risk during work at a school by not properly maintaining records or medical surveillance. About60 other charges were ordered to lie on the file. Neil Medley was ordered to do 240 hours of community service and pay £4,000 costs, and his brother was given half that penalty.
That was a grossly inadequate sentence. The judge, John Cockcroft, said that he could not send them to prison as, he claimed, the maximum punishment allowed by health and safety laws was an unlimited fine. He said:
I favour the enactment of the Law Commission's 1994 proposed reform of manslaughter law. It proposed three new offences--reckless killing, killing by gross carelessness and corporate killing. My Bill nods in that direction for asbestos offences.
My Bill would also increase penalties for offences under the Employment of Women, Young Persons and Children Act 1920. The maximum penalty of a fine not exceeding £1,000 for employing a child in an industrial undertaking is far too low. It should be an imprisonable offence to employ any child on work with asbestos.
"Good temper and moderation are the characteristics of parliamentary language."
We should not be abusive, as we have been today. I deprecate very strongly the accusations that have been made from all parts of the House.
3.45 pm
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to create new offences relating to negligent or malicious practice involving work with asbestos; to increase the penalties available to the courts for existing offences; to confer new powers on the Health and Safety Executive; to amend the law with regard to the employment rights of health and safety representatives; and for connected purposes.
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman), who is a sponsor of this Bill, for providing me with details of the film "DOA"--Dead on Arrival. In the opening scene, a man enters a police station and says, "I have come to report a murder." When asked who has been murdered, he replies, "I have."
"People with mesothelioma all die, usually after a few months of increasing pain and breathlessness. There can be no condition which is more distressing for the patient, relatives and to the completely powerless doctor, as those individuals plough inexorably downhill."
Current projects based on a paper in The Lancet entitled "The continuing increase in mesothelioma mortality in Britain" suggest that, in 10 years' time, such deaths among men could range from 1,000 to 2,100; in 20 years' time, from 1,300 to 3,000; and in 30 years' time, from 1,000 to 3,200. The ratio of other asbestos-related deaths to mesothelioma is currently 2:1. On just a 1:1 ratio, Professor Julian Peto has estimated that, in the next35 years, asbestos-related cancer will kill 500,000 men in western Europe.
"I am concerned that the general level of penalties imposed by the Courts for Health and Safety offences, including those related to asbestos, do not match their seriousness, especially given that lives are being put at risk."--[Official Report, 27 April 1999; Vol. 330, c.91.]
The Minister was being too polite. Many of the sentences have been derisory, and despite the fact that some bigger fines have been imposed, judges still seem out of touch. They fail to see the gravity of the offence and continue to assess life far too cheaply. They have also been reluctant to imprison asbestos cowboys, even where the crime has been blatant.
"Only time will tell in relation to cases of this sort whether disease caused by exposure to asbestos will cause Parliament to look again at the maximum sentences for these offences."
The Union of Construction, Allied Trades and Technicians expressed its horror at the leniency of the sentence. George Brumwell, its general secretary, said:
"We believe the sentence is an insult to the thousands of asbestos victims and their families. This case illustrates that the law must be toughened up so that punishments received for health and safety crimes match the nature of the crime. Asbestos kills people."
21 Jul 1999 : Column 1199
UCATT drew attention to the Turin court decision three years ago when nine owner-managers of the Societa Italiana Amianto asbestos factory were jailed for terms of between seven months and eight years, and ordered to pay personal compensation totalling £6 million. They were found guilty of murdering 32 workers and causing the occupational diseases of the 11 still alive. Mr. Brumwell said:
"This level of punishment would make a real difference in attitudes of employers in this country."
My Bill would increase the range of penalties, including imprisonment, for those organising work with asbestos who place another person's health or life at risk by undertaking negligent or malicious practices in the performance of that work. It would strengthen the powers of the Health and Safety Executive in the investigation of suspected breaches of asbestos law and regulations. Any obstruction of the HSE's investigations would be a crime with stiff penalties in its own right. It would introduce offences of corporate neglect and corporate malevolent practice whereby the directors of a company organising work with asbestos, which places another person's life or health at risk by negligence or malicious practice,would also be subject to penalties, including possible imprisonment.
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