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Following the publication on Monday 28th November of Professor Löfstedt's report ‘Reclaiming health and safety for all: An independent review of health and safety legislation’, the DWP issued a press release in which it announced that a new panel quite clearly designed for the benefit of employers, will be set up from 1st January 2010 to challenge rulings against employers for breach of health and safety law. Furthermore, the Government announced that within a few months, starting in January 2012, 'health & safety red tape' will begin to be scrapped following further consultation of the legislation
'The Government has announced plans to begin a major cut back of health and safety red tape as early as January. It will begin an immediate consultation on the abolition of large numbers of health and safety regulations and intents to have removed the first rules from the statute book within a few months. It will also establish from 1 January a new challenge panel which will allow businesses to get the decisions of health and safety inspectors overturned immediately if they have got it wrong. The move follows today’s publication of the Löfstedt Review into health and safety legislation, commissioned by the Employment Minister in March.' Given this, and the record of governments commissioning report and then not implementing them, it is obvious to many commentators that the Tory-led Con-Dem(ned) government intends to press ahead with pre-determined and already targeted abolition of health & safety legislation it does not like. This despite there being no evidence in the Löfstedt Review report and conclusions, that this is necessary or evidenced! “My overall conclusion is that there is no evidence for radically altering current health and safety legislation. This overwhelming view was expressed by a wide range of stakeholders including groups that represent employers. Furthermore there is evidence that work-related ill health and injury is itself a considerable burden on business (as well as a cost to society more generally) and that the regulatory regime offers vital protection to employees and the public.” - Proff Löfstedt Minister for Employment Chris Grayling is quoted in the press release as saying: "From the beginning we said getting the regulation of health and safety right is important to everyone. By accepting the recommendations of Professor Löfstedt we are putting common sense back at the heart of health and safety. Our reforms will root out needless bureaucracy and be a significant boost to the million self employed people who will be moved out of health and safety regulation altogether.
Many will see this last paragraph as an absolute cheek coming from a minister who refused on three separate occasions to meet with representatives of the families of those killed at work as a result of health and safety crimes of their employer. Families Against Corporate Killers (FACK) wrote to Chris Grayling on several occasions requesting a meeting with him to discuss and provide evidence to him with regard to any changes as a result of the then forthcoming review by Professor Löfstedt. This also included a request to see him following their meeting with the the professor, held in the the same building as Grayling's office! Yet, the were denied any meeting with the minister. Without important facts about workplace injuries and deaths, the Minister is in no position to determine changes to the law and the setting up of a so-called 'Challenge panel'. Source: DWP See also: FACK Condemns Graylings Announced Intention To Go Ahead And Slash Health And Safety Legilsation
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