MPs Urge Responsible Business Practices
MPs from all parties have spoken of the need for companies and government to do more to ensure businesses operate in a responsible way.Former government whip Parmjit Dhanda, shadow business minister Jonathan Djanogly and Liberal Democrat business spokesman John Thurso came together at an ePolitix.com event on responsible business.
Opening the event, British Safety Council chief executive Brian Nimick pointed to figures showing that 226 people were killed at work in 2006.
Improvements to the health and safety system could save the economy £31bn, Nimick said, and he stressed the need to "rescue the health and safety agenda back from the media".
"We've got to rescue the moral high-ground back because health and safety is too important to allow the media to have a free run and to downgrade the importance of health and safety," he said.
Dhanda, who is the Labour MP for Gloucester, said one of the issues on which he had received "a very big mailbag" was that of post office closures.
"We have suffered and I know my colleagues of all political persuasions have suffered over the years as [supermarkets] come into town, open up big businesses and post offices close," he said.
"In a more ethical world, where people are much much more aware of what they purchase, what matters to them is shopping in places where they feel as though the retailer actually understands their needs."
He defended the government against claims that health and safety had gone too far, claiming that criminal checks were needed to protect people.
"Health and safety, while it has to be balanced, does actually have a relevant role in the world," he said.
Downturn
Shadow corporate governance minister Jonathan Djanogly said that businesses must not lose sight of the responsibility agenda as a result of the economic downturn.
He said a number of firms had been talking about how relevant it would be as they began to feel the effects of the financial crisis.
"Will short-term cost-cutting mean that the responsibility agenda that a lot of us see as so important is going to take a backseat?" he said.
"I hope that is not the case because the values of responsibility and integrity in the conduct of this will become even more important for companies in this post-credit crunch period than they were before it."
Djanogly spoke of David Cameron's "responsibility agenda" and claimed that corporate responsibility formed a "key plank" of Conservative policy.
The Huntingdon MP said a working group he has been involved with on the issue came up with "pretty common sense answers - that actually, responsible business is almost always synonymous with good business; that better practice often comes from business rather than from government".
"It's very important to say that British business is actually leading the world in terms of best practice and that's often forgotten and something that I have quite frequently been reminding ministers about over the last few years," he added.
Describing regulation as something that could "often be a rather blunt instrument", he said it was important to shift the debate so it was less about "governments shouting down to business" and more about businesses working together.
Legislation
John Thurso, the Liberal Democrat business spokesman, said companies needed to understand the breadth of corporate social responsibility.
He told the audience that many firms think it is about charitable giving, obeying the law and following an ethical code of conduct. "To my mind it has to be all three," he said.
The Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross MP called for a clear distinction between what is and isn't appropriate to legislate on.
"Legislation has to be clear and effective and there are certain things, much as we'd like to, we can't legislate about," he said.
He set out four issues at the core of the responsible business agenda - health and safety, training, environmental sustainability and corporate social responsibility.
And while he acknowledged the need to get people "not simply to tick boxes but actually move to a culture of health and safety", he said there had been progress since the 1974 Health and Safety Act, with fatalities reduced by 73 per cent and serious injuries by 70 per cent.
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