TUC Comment On Lord Young's Review Of Safety

Following media reports on 2nd October in advance of the Tory party 'meeting' this week in Birmingham, of Lord Young's review on health and safety; the TUC's Health and Safety Officer Hugh Robertson said:

"The signs are that Lord Young's report will be seriously unbalanced. For sure silly things are sometimes done in the name of health and safety and the behaviour of some claims firms can be reprehensible.

But the real health and safety scandal in the UK is the 20,000 people who die each year due to injury or diseases linked to their work.

A serious review of health and safety would put far more emphasis on dealing with this avoidable death and suffering.

Losing a loved one to an occupational disease is rather more serious than losing out on the chance to join a pancake race."

Media reports quoted Lord Young as highlighting the usual trivial issues such as conkers being banned at school, school trips not being organised due to 'red tape' and cheese rolling contests being banned. Saturday's Guardian reported that Lord Young was going to tackle the 'excesses of the nanny state' and quoted him as saying that he had uncovered some extraordinary examples of excessive health and safety measures.

"These included a restaurant that would not give out toothpicks for fear of injury, a headteacher who told pupils not to walk under a conker tree without helmets and a council that banned a pancake race because it was raining."

So far there is no sign that his report actually deals with true health and safety issues such as the crimes committed by companies who knowingly risk the health and safety of their employees in order to maximise profit.

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