Toxic, corrosive and hazardous: the government's record on health and safety
"In May 2010, after a general election that resulted in no party having an overall majority, the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats formed a coalition government. The programme for the new government was laid out in a coalition document agreed between the two parties. This document made only o...
| Institution: | ETUI-European Trade Union Institute |
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| Format: | TEXT |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
London
2014
TUC |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://www.labourline.org/KENTIKA-19110940124919381229-Toxic,-corrosive-and-hazardous.htm |
| Summary: | "In May 2010, after a general election that resulted in no party having an overall majority, the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats formed a coalition government. The programme for the new government was laid out in a coalition document agreed between the two parties. This document made only one reference to health and safety, and that was to make an unspecified change in relation to policing. Health and safety had only a brief mention in the Conservative manifesto: the party said it would “amend the health and safety laws that stand in the way of common sense policing”, and this was reflected in the Coalition Agreement. There was no mention of health and safety in the Liberal Democrat manifesto. Since then there has been enormous government attention on health and safety, and almost all of it has been negative. There have been significant cuts in funding, forced cuts in the levels of inspections, a major round of deregulation, and several reviews. All of these have proved very disruptive to the work of the Health and Safety Executive (HSE). As a result, the consensus on health and safety that has existed almost unbroken since the 1937 Factories Act has begun to break down. Rather than seeing health and safety legislation as a necessary protection for workers, we have a government that claims it is a “burden on business”. This report looks at what has happened to our health and safety system in the past four years and the likely effect it will have on people at work." |
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| Physical Description: | 23 p. Digital |