The outcome of a government health and safety review, which seems to have been pre-ordained by the time David Cameron kicked off the process last week, has been strongly criticised by the TUC.
The prime minister announced on 14 June that Lord Young was to undertake the review. By 19 June, the former Tory employment and trade secretary was telling the Times 'People occasionally get killed, it's unfortunate but it's part of life' and declaring health and safety regulations protecting office workers were 'nonsense'. The Tory peer added that police and paramedics should be excluded from health and safety laws. He said the emergency services were 'paid for doing a job that involves risk.'
However, critics say Lord Young revealed an astonishing disregard for the facts in his error-strewn comments. TUC general secretary Brendan Barber commented:
'We would have hoped that, at the very least, any proposals for a review of health and safety would be based on the evidence rather than a selection of myths and distortions peddled by the media, more for their entertainment value than anything. Health and safety regulation is about saving lives and protecting workers from injury and illness and Lord Young needs to start listening to both workers and the families of those who have fallen victim to a lack of regulation and enforcement in the past.'
He added: 'There can be no justification whatsoever for giving those whose job is to protect us, such as firefighters and the police, less protection under the law. This is giving out a message that the lives and health of our emergency workers are of less value than those they are trying to help. We know only too well that these people already risk their lives every day to keep us safe. Is the government now going to remove the laws that say their employer has to give them the training, equipment and support they need to protect them as is suggested?'
Lord Young's review is expected to report in July.
Don't play politics with safety
'In the year when the cost of cutting corners on health and safety killed oil rig workers, polluted an ocean and threatens the very existence of BP, our prime minister, (without a dissenting squeak from his coalition partners) claims we need to end the 'compensation culture' in health and safety.' He indicated it is not just industrial workers that have reason to be concerned with the prime minister's health and safety call for a 'sensible new approach'.
Writing online for Community Care magazine, he notes there is a 'direct threat' to the working conditions of social workers. 'What recent health and safety legislation has done is to force employers to work to prevent accidents and ill health rather than pay out compensation,' he added. 'They are now required to actively engage in risk management and are supposed to involve their workforce and safety representatives in doing so. Health and safety representatives have guaranteed rights to inspect and intervene.'
Mr Kline concludes: 'There is not much 'new politics' about this review, led as it is by Lady Thatcher's former favourite minister Lord Young. It is a return to very old politics where life was cheap and accidents were inevitable.'
