Minister snubs victims group

Families of people killed at work have been thwarted in their attempts to gain access to the minister responsible for health and safety to share their concerns about the government’s deregulation agenda.

Work and pensions secretary Chris Grayling has three times refused to meet the group, Families against Corporate Killers (FACK), in recent months. FACK wants to be able to convey to the minister its concerns about the government’s deregulation agenda and cuts to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE).

FACK founder member Linzi Herbertson said: “It is more of our blood that will be spilled if Grayling’s cuts in enforcement and the deregulation of health and safety law goes ahead…No-one we loved was killed by too much regulation or ‘over compliance’ or by fear of enforcement, but by the complete opposite.”