MPs have called on the government to commit to removing all asbestos from public and commercial buildings within 40 years.
The Work and Pensions Committee report warned that asbestos is still the biggest cause of work-related deaths in the UK. That’s despite the fact that a ban on asbestos came into force more than two decades ago.
There were more than 5,000 asbestos-related deaths in 2019, from cancers such as mesothelioma.
Many of the deaths relate to exposure 35 or more years ago. The MPs said exposure appears to be much lower for younger age groups. But it also warned that there is not enough data available to understand the current picture.
MPs called on the government and Health and Safety Executive (HSE) to commit to a time frame and strategy for removing asbestos.
“We support the recommendation for there to be an overall ‘plan’ developed by the government and HSE. But we urge caution over doing this without research and evidence around safe removal and disposal.”
They also recommended prioritising removal from the highest-risk settings, such as schools.
Inspection and enforcement
They also demanded adequate funding for HSE inspection and enforcement, which they said had declined in recent years. HSE issued 60% fewer asbestos enforcement notices annually between 2011-12 and 2018-19.
The HSE had also been slow to invest in research into the cost and benefits for safe asbestos removal, the committtee added.
Work and Pensions Committee chair Stephen Timms said: “The drive towards retrofitting of buildings to meet net-zero aspirations means the risk of asbestos exposure will only escalate in the coming decades. Falling back on regulations which devolve responsibility to individual building owners and maintenance managers will not be sufficient to protect people’s health.
“Setting a clear deadline of 40 years for the removal of asbestos from non-domestic buildings will help to focus minds.”
‘Lives depend on safe removal’
Responding to the report, the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH) urged the government to “thoroughly consider” any plans for removing asbestos. It warned that “lives depend” on the same removal of asbestos.
Ruth Wilkinson, IOSH’s head of health and safety, said: “We support the recommendation for there to be an overall ‘plan’ developed by the government and HSE. But we urge caution over doing this without research and evidence around safe removal and disposal.
“Removing asbestos is something which is fraught with risks. Any decision to do so is something which cannot be taken lightly.”
She added that planning would need to go into protecting people and what happens to asbestos once it has been removed, including packaging, transportation and disposal.
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Ignorant and foolish MPs. Not only are their so many millions of tonnes of the stuff in place that they’d have to take down huge amounts of listed buildings that are literally laced with the stuff, but on top of that, disturbing it for the sake of disturbing it is just asking for trouble. Lots of removal companies out there still have gaps in their armour and there will be a lot of people exposed as a result. Additionally, it’s time, effort and expense that flies in the face of HSE advice to encapsulate and manage, and of course, then there is the cost, where only one group of organisations will benefit, and many companies cannot afford to simply “remove” all the asbestos they have… especially after 2 years of having no income thanks to idiots shutting down the economy because of Covid.
This has been proposed before, and it is no more feasible now than it was then.