Construction union UCATT has warned that the announcement that spending on the Health and Safety Executive will be slashed by 35% by 2015, will risk workers lives.

The announcement of the huge cuts in HSE funding was not contained in the Comprehensive Spending Review but the information was slipped out later by the Department for Work and Pensions.

Alan Ritchie, General Secretary of UCATT, said: "Any cuts in frontline services will inevitably lead to a greater number of workers being killed or injured at work. Sadly, the risks are greatest in safety critical industries such as construction."

The Government's decision to cut spending on the HSE comes less than a week after Lord Young released his report into Health and Safety in which he recommended no changes to safety laws in dangerous industries such as construction.


Mr Ritchie, added: "UCATT will be seeking assurances from the HSE that there will be no cuts in the level of frontline construction inspectors and that there will not be changes in the manner that safety laws are applied to construction."

The Government's plan for economic recovery is based on the private sector creating hundreds of thousands of new jobs to compensate for the 500,000 jobs, which will be lost in the public sector. It is expected that many of these jobs will be created in construction. History shows that following a recession, as new inexperienced workers and companies enter the construction industry and demand for work increases, the number of fatalities increases dramatically.

Mr Ritchie concluded: "Construction workers could face extreme dangers when the construction industry recovers. Inexperienced employers could place them in danger. Now there is the genuine possibility that the HSE whose role it is to ensure workers’ safety, will be denied the resources to perform their role properly."

(CD)