PM David Cameron effectively announced a war on the “great big health and Safety monster” . He said he’d “cut back rules and how their inspected” and that no health & safety rules would apply for the self employed.

I think he’s been hanging around with to many company board directors in private clubs and not spending time with people actually doing work in the field.  Has he met someone injured from work or families of employees killed at work – I very much doubt it.

The Health and Safety Executive shows that in 2010/11  171 people lost their lives through work. They got up in the morning and didn’t come home from the simple expectation of earning an honest living. In 2009/10 147 lost their lives at work and 2008/09 179.

But dreadful though these deaths are the scale of illness caused through work is epic. In 2010/11  1.15 MILLION working days were lost through illness caused from work, 2009/10 1.23 MILLION and 2008/09 1.18MILLION. The cost to society alone in 2010/11 was £14billion excluding cancers caused to employees from their work.

My day job is to ensure supplier performance. Part of that is ensuring suppliers work safely. It is not onerous. It’s good business to avoid killing or injuring employees or members of the general public.

BUT I could see a different emphasis where more trust was placed with people to do their job safely and well. That’s how Germany works. Employing German contractors in Germany is easier from my experience. But there they have 342 registered trades. Near everyone there undertakes a proper apprenticeship. In Germany you make a career from being a registered trades person and knowing deeply how to do a job well makes you safer.

So Mr.Cameron by all means reduce health and safety requirements AFTER you’ve ensured the whole British workforce and management have become skilled safer workers but please not before – or you’ll be killing people through your actions.

…and who will want to use self employed tradespeople in the UK where they don’t have to be formally registered giving assurance of training and under Cameron they wont in the future have to work safely – a future Dell boy economy?