Safety bodies urge government to end deregulation of health and safety

Over 700 organisations and individuals have signed a letter calling for the Prime Minister Theresa May to end the arbitrary deregulation of health and safety.

The open letter follows from the tragedy of Grenfell Tower fire and calls for a shift in politicians’ attitudes towards health and safety regulation and fire risk management.

The letter states: “We believe it is totally unacceptable for residents, members of the public and our emergency services to be exposed to this level of preventable risk in modern-day Britain.”

It also urges the UK Government to complete its review of Part B of the Building Regulations 2010 – which cover fire safety within and around buildings in England – as a matter of urgency, and to include a focus on improved safety in the forthcoming Parliament.

The four organisations that originally signed the letter – the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH); Park Health & Safety; the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA); and the British Safety Council – have now been joined by other leading professional bodies.

They include the Association for Project Safety (APS), Chartered Institute of Environmental Health (CIEH), Civil Engineering Contractors Association (CECA), International Institute of Risk & Safety Management (IIRSM), National Examination Board in Occupational Safety and Health (NEBOSH), Trades Union Congress (TUC), and Unite the union.

Lawrence Waterman OBE CFIOSH, of Park Health & Safety Partnership who led health and safety for the London Olympic Delivery Authority, said: “Over the last few days, we’ve seen organisations review and recalibrate their buildings’ fire protection arrangements, post-Grenfell Tower.

“In effect, Grenfell has raised doubts in the minds of the decent-minded over whether building safety regulations are stringent enough, whether the Government is setting the bar too low.

“And that’s why we, in the safety sector, want Theresa May and her Ministers to rethink their ‘one in, three out’ approach to deregulation that includes health and safety.

“We’re very willing indeed to sit down with the Government to help ensure it promotes smart safety regulations that protect people without being overly burdensome – but it’s time to scrap the red tape initiative.”

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