Commenting on the speech by Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg to small business leaders today, the Hazards Campaign asks that instead of publicly regurgitating the disproved and, frankly, discredited, arguments of Lord Young and Chris Grayling to prop up an equally discredited deregulatory philosophy, shouldn’t he at least wait until the evidence the government is seeking through the Lofstedt review is made public?
Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has today picked up the ball taken away from Lord Young and run with the line that somehow the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) and Environment Agency are oppressively preventing businesses getting on with solving the country’s economic woes. Yet again the Hazards Campaign say “What utter cobblers!”
Not only is it cobblers, it is dangerous, toxic, life threatening cobblers.
This is yet another assault launched by the Tories on laws and enforcement which protect workers, now with clear support from the Lib Dems. Every time Lord Young, Employment Minister Chris Grayling or PM Cameron, until today the key players in this assault, have opened their mouths, their utterances have been roundly discredited by the evidence, which disproves their biased and politically motivated theories, and evidence continues to mount up against them, as a recent BIS report shows (1).
Clegg is not only wrong when he implies the HSE over-enforces. It is clear he either doesn’t know the facts or like Lord Young et al, won’t let reality get in the way of a well spun soundbite. On average, a workplace in GB can expect an unannounced visit just once every 38 years. With the 35% cuts the HSE is having to face and the restrictions on preventative, proactive inspections put on them by Grayling, this can only get worse leaving workers lives and health at great risk (2).
The recently exposed links between cabinet ministers including Chris Grayling, and the neo-conservative lobbyist organization Atlantic Bridge (3) with its pro-business anti-worker agenda, looks like getting just what it wants out of this government: the right to make money whatever it costs workers, their families, and the cost to society! The evidence which utterly refutes the lies that regulation and enforcement of health and safety at work is a ‘burden on business’ and costs jobs, has been presented to the Lofstedt Review which will report shortly.
In the meantime we would suggest Nick Clegg stop talking such utter cobblers and show some respect for the facts, the truth and workers lives!
For more information contact:
Hazards Campaign – 0161 636 7557
Further information:
1. The SME Business Barometer published by BIS in October 201
‘A brand new survey of small and medium-sized enterprises published by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), shows that employment law and health and safety regulation do not even feature in their list of concerns. It would appear that employer organisations are pursuing a fanatical right wing agenda that does not actually reflect the concerns of their members.’
2. Once in a lifetime – Hazards magazine
3. Safety minister was part of Fox’s organisation Risks 528, 22 October 2011
We didn’t vote to die at work campaign