TUC: Don't cut health and safety regs

Tuesday, 7 September 2010 12:00 AM

by Peter Wozniak

Calls from business to cut the bureaucracy of health and safety regulations have been fiercely opposed by a new report from the Trades Union Congress (TUC).

The report, The Case for Health and Safety, claimed that the number of injuries and accidents related to the workplace remain high, with 20,000 people per year dying prematurely due to occupationally-linked injuries and diseases, according to "the most conservative estimates".

TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said: "Despite the way that health and safety is often pilloried, for those who are made ill or injured at work and for the relatives of those who have died as a result of their work, health and safety is no joke.

"Regulation works, as long as it is enforced, and it saves lives and prevents the contraction of unnecessary illnesses. That is why the UK continues to need strong regulation and enforcement. Every one of the 20,000 annual workplace-related deaths could have been prevented and if the level of HSE and local authority funding is cut, the effects will be even more catastrophic."

The report argued that as many as 1.2 million people were suffering from a work-related illness ranging from stress to cancer, and rejected calls for the much-vilified regulation of health and safety at the workplace to be slimmed down and scaled back.

Mr Barber continued: "Fatalities are not just statistics - they are real people, with lives and families - and any fall in inspections and enforcement will lead to an increase in accidents, injuries and deaths, and will have a huge impact on the already grave problem of workplace diseases."

The coalition government has made the removal of government regulation from the centre a key plank of its policy platform and has criticised such regulations as over-bearing, bureaucratic or ineffectual.

The TUC recommended the retained employment of 150,000 health and safety professionals and called on the government to appoint a tsar for the subject.

The arguments presage the inevitable controversies between unions and the government which will be brought about by the comprehensive spending review in October, with public spending set to endure dramatic cuts.

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• public services