Lord Young of ‘Gaffem’ back in favour at Number 10

October 31, 2011/0 Comments/in , , , , /by

Good news and bad news for worker safety in the UK

Bad news: Lord Young is back

Good news: there is no good news, well not much anyway… 

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‘Never had it so good’ peer Lord Young of Graffam returned to Downing Street last week on Prime Minister’s Mates’ Service or PIMMS… 

His mission, having chosen to accept it, is to help businesses thrive by ridding them of red tape and stifling health and safety regulations.

Thus a fundamentally flawed premise is enshrined in the noble Lord’s brief – Health & Safety costs money and costs jobs.   

In stark contrast to the UK’s government’s stance on health and safety in the workplace, David Michaels, assistant secretary of labor for the US Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), said on 15th February this year:

‘Despite concerns about the effect of regulation on American business, there is clear evidence that OSHA’s commonsense regulations have made working conditions in this country today far safer than 40 years ago when the agency was created, while at the same time protecting American jobs.’

Unfazed by the irony in resurrecting Lord Young’s career in the run up to Halloween, Number 10 officials have set up a new office for the 79-year-old peer who will spearhead a new push to remove barriers to growth for small and medium size companies.

His focus will be on working to ensure businesses are not stifled by regulation and he will look closely at the way health and safety rules impact on firms.

No agenda there then?

Last year his report Common sense, Common Safety, was welcomed by Mr. Cameron who has asked the Conservative peer to cut through the rule book and see where ministers can help businesses.

Unfortunately neither Mr. Cameron, the insurance industry lobby nor the bulk of commentators who regularly line up to vilify accident victims actually noticed that Lord Young didn’t agree with them…

For the record, this is what he said on page 19 of ‘Common Sense, Common Safety’:

Britain’s ‘compensation culture’ is fuelled by media stories about individuals receiving large compensation payouts for personal injury claims…

The problem of the compensation culture prevalent in society today is, however, one of perception rather than reality…

The public believes that the number of claims and the amount paid out in damages have also risen significantly.

The really unfortunate thing however is that Lord Young singularly failed to get this ‘common sense’ message across.

He wrote that the compensation culture is more myth than reality yet he remained mute and supine on the core issue when the report’s findings were made public. Perhaps this is why he is so suited to the task of fixing the non-problem of the ‘burden’ of Health & Safety legislation? 

Last November Lord Young of Gaffem pronounced:

For the vast majority of people in the country today, they have never had it so good ever since this recession – this so-called recession – started…”

We await with baited breath, his magisterial musings on the tiresome burden imposed by laws designed to keep people safe and well at work in the UK.

However, Mr. Cameron has clearly decided Lord Young has served his time and will welcome him back…just when we thought he had gone for good last October…  

 So farewell then Lord Young of Gaffem. 

 You resigned after you made a gaffe.

 You claimed that most people had ‘never had it so good.’ 

 Unfortunately this just isn’t true,

 Like much of your ‘Common Sense Common Safety’ review.

 Adieu.

But not so fast, the prodigal returns.

Expect many more workplace cuts, crushes, crashes and burns.  

Jack Straw aimed a kick at the wrong target when he bemoaned activities of claims companies and lawyers in referral fee investigation.

October 17, 2011/0 Comments/in , , , , , /by

 

Thus, at a stroke, Djanogly kicked into touch the key finding of Lord Young’s 2010 report on the Compensation Culture (see our other blog posts) i.e. that there is no compensation culture (page 26 of the report) – it is the figment of the popular press’ imagination, aided and abetted by the insurance industry. 

 

 

Mr. Straw, the Labour MP for Blackburn, said the scandal was hitting ‘perfectly law-abiding people’ with sky-high insurance costs…

 

and what about the perfectly law-abiding people who will find their access to justice cut off?

 

Mr. Straw, whose own investigation (bit of a ‘cult of Jack’ going on here) into how even the police are taking tip-fees, prompted the select committee to re-open its earlier enquiry, said: ‘What I am clear about is that of a total of about £9billion premium income, £2billion is costs caused by people who can be accurately be classed as the parasites in the system.

 

How is he clear about this again? Didn’t HE read Lord Young’s report?

 

Mr. Straw told MPs that the previous night, while he was preparing his evidence to the committee, he had been phoned at home by a claims accident company seeking to represent him over an alleged accident  in the last three years: ’I’d not had an accident in the last three years,’ he told MPs.

‘But it shows the relentless pressure inside these very dodgy firms.’

 

Yes Jack, but you like countless others did not claim, nay COULD NOT CLAIM BECAUSE YOU HADN’T HAD AN ACCIDENT – GEDDITT?

 

Mr. Straw added: ‘Claims management companies are parasitic. In any other walk of life, we would describe this racket by referral companies as bribery.

‘These practices are leading to very substantial (insurance) increases on law-abiding motorists.’

 

Jonathan Djanogly said the Government intended to band the ‘merry-go-round’ of referral fees which have sent premiums rocketing.

 

He noted: ‘You only have to turn on daytime TV to see lots of dodgy solicitors’ firms which are part of this racket.’ He said there were two firms of solicitors within 100 yards of his own front door offering ‘£600 for a referral.’

 

Memo to Justice Secretary:

If dodgy solicitors are advertising on tv, then bring them to justice now!! Haven’t you heard about the Advertising Standards Authority?

 

Justice Minister Jonathan Djanogly told the committee the Government’s decision to ban the ‘merry-go-round’ of referral fees was ‘appropriate’ and had been ‘generally welcomed’.

 

Referral fees were part of the ‘sick, suing culture’ that was keeping premiums artificially high: ‘We want the benefit to feed through to the consumer in the form of lower premiums.’…and fair compensation settlements!!! 

 

He believed the Government’s reforms would bring commons sense to the system by weeding out greedy claims, noting how under the current system: ‘If you are a claimant and have no chance of losing, you are almost crazy not to sue. Why wouldn’t you? That’s what we propose to reverse.’ 

 

This is getting rather tiresome. Will somebody PLEASE tell the UK Justice Minister that an injured person wishing to make a claim has to actually prove negligence? Ye gods – does he think that people claiming compensation just have to ask the insurance companies nicely?

 

Keen to get in on the act, or is it the feeding frenzy, roads Minister Mike Penning condemned the claims firms as ‘ambulance chasers’ noting: ‘As a human being I find it very difficult that any organisation would seek to profit from others’ injury. Yet fifty per cent of claims are personal injury claims.’ 

 

This comment is about as crass and unthinking as it is possible to get, even for a government minister.

 

Critics say soaring premiums are tempting some to drive uninsured – with an estimated 1.3 million drivers now on the road without insurance.

 

A word anyone about insurance company profit margins or their active participation in and encouragement of referral payment schemes?

 

MPs on the Transport select committee report have already condemned the current system as ‘dysfunctional’. We take it they mean the claiming ‘thing’ and not Mr. Djanogly’s department…although that story isn’t over yet, not by a long way.

 

Paul Evans, chief executive of insurance company AXA UK, said increases had slowed to about a 1 to 2% rise a month but added:’ we shall continue to see continuing increases in the months to come …

 

aye right enough, as he squeezes every ounce of profit out of claimants before his game is rumbled by a myopic government and an enraged public who aren’t as gullible as he thinks.

US health and safety laws are good for business

February 16, 2011/0 Comments/in , , , /by

Workplace health and safety regulations not only save lives, they benefit the economy, the USA’s top safety official said yesterday.

In stark contrast to the UK’s government’s stance on health and safety in the workplace, David Michaels, assistant secretary of labor for the US Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), said:

‘Despite concerns about the effect of regulation on American business, there is clear evidence that OSHA’s commonsense regulations have made working conditions in this country today far safer than 40 years ago when the agency was created, while at the same time protecting American jobs.

The truth is that OSHA standards don’t kill jobs. They stop jobs from killing workers. OSHA standards don’t just prevent worker injuries and illnesses. They also drive technological innovation, making industries more competitive.’

Speaking ahead of a Republican-driven formal government committee hearing ‘Investigating OSHA’s regulatory agenda and its impact on job creation’, Dr Michaels said: ‘Many OSHA standards cost little and easily can be adopted by employers with nominal effect on the bottom line. OSHA, by law and by practice, always looks at both the overall cost of compliance with a proposed regulation and at the expected benefits. The evidence shows that OSHA generally overestimates the cost of its standards.

Congress’ Office of Technology Assessment, comparing the predicted and actual costs of eight OSHA regulations, found that in almost all cases ‘industries that were most affected achieved compliance straightforwardly, and largely avoided the destructive economic effects’ that they feared.’

He concluded ‘OSHA’s job isn’t over. More than 3 million workers in America are injured every year. Every day 12 workers die on the job. OSHA’s commonsense regulations are helping to drive these numbers down and, at the same time, helping American businesses modernise and compete in the global economy.’

At a time workplace safety campaigners are on the back foot in the UK, we implore the government to take heed of the US example and in its own words, apply ‘commonsense to common safety’, as it purported to do last year when Lord Young was comissioned to review health and safety regulations. 

Unfortunately, when the noble Lord took careful aim at the so-called ‘compensation culture’ and hit the wrong target, the government rushed to congratulate him (as he had produced the justification for draconian budget cuts) and quickly began the systematic dismantling of the regulations that protect workers’ lives and help industry become more – not less – competitive.

Bonnar & Company is very concerned about the dilution of health and safety legislation in the UK and we lend our voice to those campaigning on behalf of worker safety.

Lord Young of ‘Gaffem’…

November 19, 2010/0 Comments/in , , /by

So farewell then Lord Young of Graffham.

You resigned after you made a gaffe.

You claimed that most people had ‘never had it so good.’

Unfortunately this just isn’t true,

Like much of your ‘Common Sense Common Safety’ review.

Adieu.

£20,000 asbestos fine imposed on John Lewis ‘low hazard’ workplace

November 10, 2010/0 Comments/in , , , /by

High street retailer John Lewis PLC was yesterday handed a fine of £20,000 for failing to do proper checks for deadly asbestos while carrying out refurbishment work at a city department store.

In a case which gives the lie to Lord Young’s recent assertion that offices present a low hazard risk to health and safety, Edinburgh Sheriff Court heard renovation work was being carried out over four days at the management suite of the retailer’s store at the city’s St James Centre in July 2008 when asbestos was discovered at a board between two radiators.

Workers covered it in a bag and reported it to management before a check was carried out. The board was sent for analysis but work was allowed to continue when the site should have been shut down. It was only when the results came back positive that the project was halted. The court heard around 15 workers could potentially have been exposed to the harmful substance.

Sheriff Elizabeth Jarvie QC today also fined contractors Morris and Spottiswood Ltd £20,000 and added that she had reduced both fines from £30,000 to reflect the guilty pleas. However, she went on to say: “This was a serious and disturbing case but in any event no-one sustained any harm. As soon as discovery was made effective and immediate action was taken by the companies.”

Fair enough?

Well sorry no, not really and here’s why. Far from ‘no-one sustaining any harm’, the reality is that asbestos is an invidious, invasive and life-threatening substance which, if even a single fibre is inhaled, can cause cancer in the victim, a fact borne out by the 4,000 plus deaths from asbestos-related cancer each year in the UK.

Are we missing the point here? Lord Young has chosen to completely ignore the fact that ANY WORKPLACE HAS THE POTENTIALTO BE HAZARDOUS OR INJURIOUS TO HEALTH.

It is quite astonishing that a government funded report can blandly state that: ‘low hazard workplaces are those where the risk of injury or death is minimal. These include shops, offices and classrooms…’

Perhaps the HSE should have made Lord Young aware of its own research on asbestos-related deaths before rushing to endorse his various ill-judged pronouncements on the relative dangers of ‘low hazard’ workplaces.

John Lewis PLC and Morris and Spottiswood each admitted three charges under the Control of Asbestos Regulations 2006, Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2007 and Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999.

If you have been exposed to asbestos or any substance injurious to your health and wish to discuss your case, please contact us on FREEPHONE 0800 163 978.