The Nonsense Surrounding the UK's Health and Safety Laws

The Nonsense Surrounding the UK's Health and Safety Laws

The anti-health and safety story comes from (as if you didn't know already) The Daily Mail, which has seized upon the story of a Hampshire creche's coffee morning being cancelled as evidence, if any were needed, that the country is going mad.

The article decries the nonsense of a coffee morning in which coffee has been banned. Yes, this does seem faintly ridiculous, it could be said.

The Mail also points out that the mornings at Mill Hill Children's Centre in Waterlooville have been run without incident for seven years. Good for them; a commendable result that suggests that the organisers of these mornings know what they're doing. But for whatever reason, and we have to assume there has been no injuries on their premises that have triggered this decision, they have become so nervous about things that they feel they have no choice but to ban hot drinks. What could have caused this?

Is it a case of the HSE planning an imminent swoop upon their premises? Or is it a case of the organisers becoming increasingly spooked by those elements of the media who create an artificial picture of the 'elf 'n' safety' culture, and ironically then berate business owners for believing them?

The title of the article grates somewhat: 'Health and safety chiefs ban hot drinks... from coffee mornings' Quite which health and safety chiefs the article writer has in mind is open to question. Do they mean, perhaps, senior figures in the health and safety executive? I somehow doubt it.

In my student days I worked in a couple of coffee shops and it is undeniable that some cafe owners are very aware of out-of-control kids careering into one of their staff and suffering the effects of the resultant roasting-hot-coffee shower that will rain upon them.

These business owners do not wish to have to suffer the possible litigation that would result from such an occurrence, but their decisions are their own. I think this attitude is quite admirable in that it stems from a duty and a desire to protect people from injury, not just to keep their backs financially covered.

The Health and Safety Executive have more important things to do, like trying to stop repeats of the accident which resulted in the death of a builder in London last week.

The man was working on the basement of a house in Fulham, south-west London, last Thursday when the ground floor above collapsed and buried him.

It follows another accident in Belgravia in October, in which a skip fell through the road surface after workmen, Looney-Tunes-like, burrowed beneath it.

A quick glance through the results of the term 'work accident' on Google News will confirm that serious, fatal accidents in public places happen all the time. It is somehow to be doubted that the HSE have time, after trying to establish what caused these avoidable deaths, to worry about a provincial coffee morning.

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