Home What's New Speeches & Articles Newsletter - Jul 2008 Biography Diary Contact Information Photo Album Parliamentary Highlights Publications Links MEPs' Transparency   Conservative Party Latest News from Conservatives.com Conservative Party Website
		EU formally finalise Directive on Vibrations - 24 April 2002 Conservative MEPs from the East Midlands, Chris Heaton-Harris and Roger Helmer, have condemned a new EU Directive on Vibration which is set to be formally nodded through the European Parliament tomorrow (25/04). Proposed on Health and Safety grounds, the Directive will officially limit tractor drivers to only seven hours work at a time. Speaking today from Brussels, Euro-MP Roger Helmer said: "The National Farmers' Union has rightly condemned this Directive as the European Nanny State gone mad. "The cost to the UK farming industry will be immense, and for no proven health benefit. The Directive is another example of officious EU legislation" Chris Heaton-Harris MEP said: "Amendments supported by UK Labour MEPs could nonetheless have made it madder still, proposing vibration limits which would have forced tractor drivers to stop working after only two hours. Working with the NFU we Tories tried to get agriculture exempt from the Directive altogether, but we couldn't get enough support in the Parliament. The good news is that we got the Socialists lower limits overturned, and managed to delay the implementation deadline for existing machinery used in agriculture and forestry until 2014. But I just wish we could have overturned the whole Directive. "There is no quantified scientific evidence linking whole body vibration to back pain, but this has not stopped the EU imposing completely unrealistic limits on such vibration. Asking tractor drivers to work only seven hours a day at harvest-time is ludicrous."