Tory plans to privatise safety will cost construction workers’ lives
16.03.10
Construction union UCATT are warning that Conservative plans to privatise safety inspections will increase the number of deaths and serious injuries suffered by construction workers.
The Conservatives this week confirmed that they intend to press ahead with plans to allow large construction companies to conduct private safety audits of their sites. Once a company obtains a private safety audit Health and Safety Executive inspectors will be barred from entering the site unless there was an emergency.
Alan Ritchie, General Secretary of UCATT, said: “This proves that the Tories cannot be trusted with workers’ safety. If implemented this will effectively end independent safety inspections and will lead to a greater number of workers being maimed and killed at work.”
Under the proposals which were first unveiled during last years Conservative conference in a document titled: Regulation in the Post Bureaucratic Age, companies judged to be “low risk” could commission a private safety audit which would bar all their sites from being visited by inspectors. This week in an interview in Construction News, Conservative business spokesperson John Penrose, indicated his party’s determination to press ahead with the plans.
Mr Ritchie, added: “The ignorance and the stupidity of the Conservatives is staggering. Safety on construction sites, where many different companies are working at any one time, can change rapidly. Under these plans if workers or members of the public had safety concerns, the HSE would be prevented from acting until an accident occurred. The HSE’s role should be primarily about preventing accidents before they occur.”
Mr Penrose has claimed that the plans would mean that large companies would be able to acquire safety audits so the HSE could focus its resources on small companies. However in recent weeks several fatal accidents have occurred on sites run by large companies.
Mr Ritchie, further added: “Construction deaths are all too frequent and they occur on sites run by both large and small companies. To ban inspections on sites run by some companies is not going to make the industry safer.”
The Conservatives proposals fly in the face of the Donaghy Report into construction safety. The report published in July 2009, specifically opposed so called “self-regulation”. Instead the report recommended an increase in inspector numbers, especially in London.
Construction is the most dangerous industry in Britain. Last year (2008/9) 54 workers were killed at work, this was a significant decrease on the previous year (2007/8) when 72 worker died, this was primarily due to lower levels of activity caused by the economic downturn.
