GMB questions McVey’s appointment at DWP
General union GMB has branded the appointment of Esther McVey as secretary of state at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) as “totally inappropriate”.
In her new role, McVey has ultimate responsibility for the HSE. But the union points out that in 2013 she was stripped of her health and safety responsibilities while an employment minister at the DWP. It had emerged that she was a company director at her father’s demolition firm when it was served with two prohibition notices for health and safety breaches.
According to Environmental Health News, McVey was a director of J G McVey & Co from February 2003 to March 2006. In July and September 2003, HSE inspectors stopped demolition work after McVey employees were spotted working on scaffolding without edge protection.
“Esther McVey is a deeply unsuitable person to be responsible for the health and safety of UK workers,” said GMB national health and safety officer Dan Shears. “At best she’ll be oblivious to the human toll caused by health and safety failings – at worst her cavalier attitude risks endangering workers.”
“It beggars belief that the prime minister deemed it fit to hand Esther McVey a brief she had previously been unceremoniously stripped of in such murky and troubling circumstances,” he added.