Sir Stephen Timms

Employers need to take care that visitors to their premises are protected. What is being done includes making sure that workers at risk are having respiratory health checks, lung function testing and X-rays at intervals decided by an occupational health professional, and that employers have clear processes for identifying and reporting symptoms. In this debate, the importance of carrying out reporting has rightly been identified. The HSE is currently consulting on expanding the requirements in the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations to include silicosis once again. The consultation on that is under way, and it will conclude at the end of the month. The hon. Member for Eastleigh was quite right to raise that issue. For those who choose not to comply with the law, we need effective enforcement. Starting in April and throughout the summer, HSE will be carrying out more than 1,000 inspections across the industry. It will inspect every place that we know of where this stone is being cut— if anyone knows of a place that we may not be aware of, please let me know; I want to make sure that HSE can go and look at it. HSE has carried out 13 inspections since they started at the end of April. Those were visits to places that concern was expressed to us about. Out of the 13 inspections so far, two businesses had ceased trading, but six of the remaining 11 were made to stop processing immediately. Prohibition notices were served for dry processing, unguarded machinery or both. Eight businesses received improvement notices for failing to provide the correct respiratory equipment, while eight received them for failing to provide health surveillance for employees. Just one of the 13 was operating in an exemplary way. Through the programme, HSE will inspect every site it can identify in the country that works with engineered stone. HSE’s inspectors are being briefed on the programme this week. The resources are available to do the job properly, and inspections are under way across the country. Wherever standards are not met, enforcement action will be taken, including a prohibition notice if necessary. As a result of the inspections, HSE may give a duty holder advice or, where there are more significant concerns, issue improvement or prohibition notices that require a duty holder to make improvements or stop dangerous activities altogether. The inspections are now under way, and we are determined to drive out the poor practice behind the problems we have heard about in this debate. We remain committed to ensuring that every worker in every sector is properly protected from this entirely avoidable harm. I welcome the contributions of Members who spoke today. I commend the campaign of The i Paper on this issue and all those who are working to highlight this important and alarming development. I will continue to monitor the evidence available in this country and keep an eye on what is going on elsewhere in the world. I will be very happy to consider further measures if it becomes clear that they are needed. Question put and agreed to.