Prime Ministerial pledges to kill the “health and safety monster” have been branded as “appalling and unhelpful” by an industry expert.
David Cameron courted controversy yesterday in a speech to small business leaders in Maidenhead, when he declared “war” on what he described as the “excessive health and safety culture that has become an albatross around the neck of British businesses”.
As a result, the Prime Minister said that he had asked the Health and Safety Executive to bring forward plans to abolish up to half of all existing regulations by the end of the year.
He also revealed plans to impose a cap on the legal fees that could be charged in any workplace personal injury claims valued at less than £25,000. The aim here was to cut the cost of cases funded by ‘no-win, no-fee’ deals and to discourage vexatious claims, he said.
“This coalition has a clear New Year’s resolution: to kill off the health and safety culture for good. I want 2012 to go down in history not just as Olympics year or Diamond Jubilee year, but the year we get a lot of this pointless time-wasting out of the British economy and British life once and for all,” Cameron attested.
Fit-for-purpose
The Lofstedt Report, which was published in November to immediate Ministerial approval, has already recommended a raft of changes in a bid to cut the number of health and safety regulations. These include exempting self-employed people and removing ‘strict liability’ for employers in various instances.
But Richard Jones, head of policy and public affairs at The Institution of Occupational Safety and Health, condemned the Prime Minister’s comments.
“Labelling workplace health and safety as a monster is appalling and unhelpful as the reason our legislative system exists is to prevent death, injury or illness at work, protecting livelihoods in the process,” he told the Guardian.
The problem, as identified by the Government’s own reviews, was not so much the law, but more an “exaggerated fear of being sued, fed by aggressive marketing”, Jones added.
Steve Radley, director of policy at manufacturers’ organisation, EEF, was also adamant about the need not to confuse ‘compensation culture’ with overall ‘health and safety culture’, which was a “different issue altogether”.
“The Lofstedt Review clearly indicated that the UK’s health and safety system is fit-for-purpose and that the problems lie with the interpretation of legislation by some parts of the insurance industry, not the legislation itself,” he added.
