The following information has been supplied by the TUC:
The prime minister's inclination to blame safety for the ills of the economy and society has surfaced yet again.
After first blaming health and safety for August's riots, David Cameron has now decided 'the shadow of health and safety' is holding back Britain. In his keynote address to this week's Conservative Party conference in Manchester, he said 'one of the biggest things holding people back is the shadow of health and safety.' This was followed by one of his more widely reported soundbites. 'This isn't how a great nation was built. Britannia didn't rule the waves with arm-bands on,' he said.
Safety professionals' organisation IOSH reacted with disappointment to the speech. IOSH head of policy and public affairs Richard Jones commented: 'We think it's a shame that the prime minister's speech mistakenly cites health and safety as 'holding people back' - the opposite is true! Good health and safety enables enterprise and volunteering to happen successfully and so helps ensure sustainability and growth. It's all about good sense and proportionality and we simply don't recognise the negative picture being painted here - it isn't real health and safety.'
The TUC found the whole tenor of David Cameron's speech and the Tory conference 'disappointing'. TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said: 'If the prime minister really felt the nation's pain, he would change course.' He added: 'If we judge people by what they do, rather than what they say, ministers believe that unemployment will be solved by getting tougher with the jobless and that they will restore economic growth by increasing the number of unfair dismissals."
