Mr President, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mrs Thorning-Schmidt, for the tremendous grasp she has demonstrated of this highly technical subject both in committee and in plenary. My father and his brothers and, in fact, all the male members of my family worked in the coalmines in the northeast of England and most of them have received compensation for both industrial white finger, which is caused by hand-arm vibration, and industrial deafness. This proposal concerning physical agents is a very real proposal to me. Vibration has been a major problem in the past. But it still is, and that is demonstrated by the very strenuous lobbying on all Members of this House from various sectors of industry in relation to this proposal. I would like to echo what the rapporteur has said about the other elements of the original physical agents' directive. Noise, the original directive of 1986, was due to be reviewed in 1991. Here we are, ten years later, and no revision to the existing legislation on noise has been made. On optical radiation, industrial lasers were in their infancy when the original proposal was brought forward. They are now in widespread use and we need to update or introduce law at European level on that subject in regard to fields and waves. We are increasingly bombarded by fields and waves of all types and all intensities in our homes and workplaces. That is set to increase radically as a result of developments such as the new bluetooth standard. All of those outstanding elements are becoming increasingly urgent, and I hope the Commission will continue its good work to break the impasse that has so far existed inside the Council. The rapporteur has introduced a number of important amendments in her report, but probably among the most important is Amendment No 2 concerning whole-body vibration. Amendment No 2 represents a compromise, it lies between the Commission's original proposal and the common position, and I hope it will receive the support of the House. We have received strenuous lobbying, particularly on whole-body vibration. There is general consensus on the need to act on hand-arm vibration, but industrial lobbyists have worked hard to convince Members that there is no link between whole-body vibration and injury. I know for a fact that the Commission has at least 17 box-files of evidence showing causality between exposure to whole-body vibration and injury. The difficulty is in untangling what proportion of the injury is due directly to whole-body vibration and what proportion is due to other factors such as poor ergonomics or bad posture. There is a causal link and there is a need to act. I hope we will see support for the rapporteur on that issue. The rapporteur has also mentioned a compromise to exclude agriculture. It proved necessary to introduce such a compromise; the exclusion would be for five years if it does come to pass. I would have preferred that it did not occur, but it had to happen to secure political consensus here for today's vote. If it is agreed, the Commission must not do its usual trick of waiting the full five years before assessing the scientific evidence and bringing forward a proposal. The preparatory work needs to be done to move quickly once that five years has expired. What, then, we are aiming for and will continue to seek to achieve in conciliation, beyond the debate and vote today, is a balance between action levels and limit values which it will be possible for industry to accept and implement but will at the same time drive forward improved engineering to eliminate vibration from new equipment and improve the way in which ergonomic considerations are taken into account. I hope the report will be supported today.

Political group: PSE