Minister understates cost of work safety failings

The Hazards campaign group has accused work and pensions minister Chris Grayling of misleading a parliamentary debate on the cost of workplace health and safety failings.

Asked a question from Labour MP Ian Lavery on the financial cost of health and safety failings, Grayling, referring to a written briefing from the HSE, said that “the annual cost to Great Britain of workplace injuries and work-related ill health is currently in the order of £20 billion.”

However, a freedom of information request by Hazards now reveals that the information which the HSE passed to the minister (though not the draft reply) contained significantly more detail than this. Specifically, it advised the minister that the estimate of £20 billion “does not include the costs of long-latency disease,” and added: “These costs could be considerable.”

However, when Grayling replied to parliament he simply referred to the £20 billion figure, without mentioning the costs of long-latency disease.

This was a hugely significant omission considering that the cost of mesothelioma (an asbestos-related cancer) is at least £5 billion, according to Hazards.

Hazards commented: “Grayling’s creative accounting, aided by a compliant HSE and combined with an industry blind spot on the substantial cash benefits to society of not killing or sickening workers, creates a regulation-averse fiction to justify less health protection at work. It is an approach that experts are now warning can cause serious harm to real businesses and real-life workers.”