Cameron slams ‘over the top’ health and safety
Tory leader, David Cameron, has criticised the UK’s ‘bureaucratic’ health and safety culture and announced Conservative plans to tackle it
In his speech to the think tank Policy Exchange, Mr Cameron claimed that the spirit of health and safety had ‘gone seriously wrong’ over the last decade, labelling legislation and regulation a ‘straightjacket on personal initiative and responsibility’.
He said: ‘When trainee hairdressers are not allowed scissors in the classroom, when office workers are banned from moving a chair without expert supervision, it is clear that what began as a noble intention to protect people from harm has mutated into a stultifying blanket of bureaucracy, suspicion and fear that has saturated our country.
‘There is no such thing as a risk-free environment and efforts to eliminate all risk will end by eliminating enterprise, creativity, achievement and innovation.’
Mr Cameron hit out at the Labour government for being ‘obsessed’ with legislation and regulation. He said: ‘Many areas of our life are now governed by petty rules, regulations and tick box bureaucracy that flies in the face of common sense.’
However, Mr Cameron’s comments were rejected by TUC general secretary Brendan Barber as having no basis in reality. He said: ‘None of the cases mentioned relate to health and safety regulation – they are either distortions of the facts or misunderstandings.
‘People expect political parties to develop policies based on facts, not on half-truths and myths culled from newspaper headlines.’
In outlining his plans for the future Mr Cameron announced that the Conservative party would establish clear principles about when health and safety legislation is appropriate and propose changes in legislation to halt excessive litigation. As a part of the plans the former Conservative trade secretary, Lord Young, would lead a review into how the health and safety culture can be curbed.