To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what plans there are to include deafness suffered as a result of working in turbine halls of nuclear power stations as an occupational deafness qualifying for industrial injuries disablement benefit.

The Industrial Injuries Advisory Council advises the Secretary of State on the prescription of occupations under the industrial injuries scheme. The council issued a report "Occupational Deafness" (Cm. 1245) in October 1990 which recommended certain changes to ease the administrative problems in processing claims for occupational deafness. Some new procedures were introduced in April this year and subject to these being satisfactory further improvements are planned. The results will be monitored and when we are satisfied that the new procedures are working well we can then consider what scope there is for extending the present list of prescribed occupations.