Health and safety: an election issue?
The British Safety Council has written to six of the main political parties in advance of the General Election on the 7 May to find out more about their plans, if elected, for health and safety.
“With less than two months to the General Election,” said Neal Stone, Acting Chief Executive of the British Safety Council, “we wanted to hear from the parties ahead of the election what their plans and priorities are for ensuring that those at work are kept healthy and safe.
“We focused on six political parties, namely the Conservative, Green, Labour, Liberal Democrat, SNP and UKIP. It is certain that one, or more, of these parties will be in government come 7 May. Their views on how they plan to help grow a sustainable economy, and the role that good health and safety will play in achieving that goal, are of vital importance to British Safety Council, our member organisations and their employees.
“We put three questions to them. The first concerned how health and safety is regulated, and in particular how each of the parties would support the Health and Safety Executive and Local Authorities, to ensure that risks are being adequately controlled. As budgets are tight and public spending on regulation and enforcement reduces, we want to hear from parties what they will do to ensure regulators are adequately resourced including their views on HSE becoming more commercial.
“We also sought views on the role and responsibility of employers to help address the nation’s health issues through workplace interventions. Health risks are always difficult to tackle and in many ways have been a second order priority as we focussed largely on the prevention of injuries at work. However our failure to effectively manage occupational health risks, costing some £8bn each year, is a huge burden for the country. The workplace can be a very convenient place to convey important health messages from occupational disease like cancer, to obesity and the dangers of physical inactivity.
“Finally, we wanted to hear party’s ideas on how to we can incentivise employers to do more to invest in good health and safety. There are many innovations in the field of insurance and taxation, some already in operation other countries, which could encourage sound investment to help prevent workplace injury and ill health occurrences. Getting businesses to invest in effective health and safety measures, is critical. We know that investment in training and the proper maintenance of plant, equipment and machinery can help reduce lost time and maintain productivity whilst saving the public purse billions spent by the NHS on healthcare.”
The British Safety Council is planning to publish the responses we received from the six parties in May 2015 edition of Safety Management. A copy of the letter can be accessed here.
BSC, good luck with getting answers. If you get any, please share them with safety profession voters. Whatever any politician or candidate states – when the Transatlantic Trade & Investment Partnership (TTIP) is signed very soon between US & EU – all bets are off – corporations rule the world for 1 single motive – profit – at any cost. Forget votes – forget democracy – forget politics – corporate profit is the be all and end all – sovereign governments and ordinary people will become an irritation other than being debt slaves & tax donkeys to corporations – TTIP… Read more »