Anyone live in Leicester? The lockdown there has been extended.

www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/environmental-audit-committee/news-parliament-2017/fixing-fashion-government-response-published-17-19/

The former Labour MP Mary Creagh for Wakefield led an Environmental Audit Committee investigation into fast fashion two years ago. Every recommendation was rejected by the government.

On workers’ rights Mary Creagh said:
“We presented the Government with the evidence that it has failed to stop garment workers in this country being criminally underpaid, despite its claim that the number of national minimum wage inspectors has increased.
“The public has a right to know that the clothes they buy are not produced by children or forced labour, however the Government hasn’t accepted our recommendations on the Modern Slavery Act to force fashion retailers to increase transparency in their supply chains.

The government’s response included:

"More proactive approach to enforcement of the National Minimum Wage with greater resourcing for HMRC’s National Minimum Wage team to increase inspection and detection work.

Government says HMRC and other enforcement agencies already taking more proactive approach with increase in budget and officers dedicated to NMW enforcement.

The Government should publish a publicly accessible list of retailers required to release a modern slavery statement. This should be supported by an appropriate penalty for those companies who fail to report and comply with the Modern Slavery Act.

No recommendations relating to modern slavery have been adopted."

Boohoo refused to appear or answer questions. The rejection of the report gave the green light to continue as they were, increase profits with no checks and balances.

As ever, they will deny responsibility, claiming they don’t own the factories so have limited control. They will cut and run, ditching factories that are caught out.

This government, and previous, mostly Conservative, governments has always championed de-regulation, saying that "red tape" has prevented entrepreneurship and weakened our economy.

I wonder how many the wealthy and outwardly respectable business owners have taken full advantage of the reluctance of this government and others to put the necessary resources into the system to properly monitor working conditions in factories and so-called sweat shops.

The TUC website reported in April 2012:

"The government has said that it wants to drastically cut the number of health and safety inspections that are done by the HSE and local authority inspectors.

"In March 2011 it published “Good Health and Safety, Good for Everyone”. This said that the HSE and local authorities should cut the number pro-active inspections by a third. Proactive inspections are those where the inspector visits to check on the workplace as part of a general programme of visits rather than to investigate after a reported injury.

"Before then the HSE aimed to split its inspection activity so that 60 per cent of its visits were proactive and 40 per cent were re-active.

"Under the new government directive the HSE will no longer be able to inspect a wide range of premises pro-actively. This means that they will only be able to visit after a reported injury or a complaint. Clearly this will mean that many employers will be far less likely to report any injuries in case they are inspected.

"The reason that the government has given for this is that the industries are “low-risk” or inspections are ineffective.

The areas that the government thinks are “low risk” include
not only shops, schools and offices, but textiles, clothing, footwear, light engineering, electrical engineering, the transport sector (e.g. air, road haulage and docks), local authority administered education provision, electricity generation and the postal and courier services.

"They have also said that pro-active inspections are ineffective in agriculture, quarries, and health and social care so should not be done there either."

Illte, (page 1)
Do you mean the same as the witch hunt that was conducted against Dominic Cummings who is, apparently, responsible for all ills in this country!!!

Quizqueen. Anything where the evidence and facts are ignored in favour of unsubstantiated opinion and prejudice and the innocent are hounded.

Eloethan in regard to your post @13:06 today, pro-active inspections of workplaces virtually ceased in 2015 when the numbers of Inspectors employed within the Health & Safety Executive (HSE) and local authorities were drastically cut.

The HSE has been " hollowed out" as a working agency and in present times much of its inspection and investigation activities are carried out by commercial companies such as our own on contractual bases.

However, the HSE remains a very powerful agency organisation within government and should not be underestimated in its powers and how they are applied when legislation allows them to do so.

The Grenfell Tower tragedy has proved to be a landmark incident in safety legislation for as the Inquiry has already concluded it was deregulation that brought the disaster about.

For us who have worked in industrial safety for many years the outlook has improved, for gone are the days when press and even MPs referred to the sector in terms such as "Elf and Safety.

The insurance industry has also become far more pro-active in workplace safety by empowering companies such as our own to carry out safety audits and inspections of workplaces prior to accepting insurance commitments and following incidents.

So, no one knows what Boris may try to bring about following Brexit, but at present there is good reason to be optimistic that present standards of workplace safety can be maintained within responsible employers and employees.

"within responsible employers and employees."

But how many employers and employees aren't responsible?

The husband of a friend of mine is a Principal Inspector in the HSE. Hardly a week goes by when I don't see his name in the paper because a workplace death has occurred and my friend's husband is involved in the prosecution. Most of the cases seem to involve building sites and warehousing/logistics. This is a typical comment: “This was a tragic and wholly avoidable incident, caused by the failure of the company to implement and monitor safe systems of work."

The question remains why textiles factories were overlooked, when the health hazards were known and had been flagged up.

It wasn't just health hazards anyway, but breaches in the NMW.

growstuff Quote [how many employers and employees aren't responsible?] End Quote

Answer, a considerable number and that has kept me in work for the last thirty-five years and our company in business for the last twenty years.

growsfuff Quote [Most of the cases seem to involve building sites and warehousing/logistics. This is a typical comment: “This was a tragic and wholly avoidable incident, caused by the failure of the company to implement and monitor safe systems of work." ] End Quote.

Since the introduction of the Health & Safety At Work Act, all workplace accidents have been reduced by an average of eighty-six percent year on year.

Within Road Haulage and Distribution accidents and incidents have been reduced by over ninety percent when road traffic incidence are deducted as they are not identified as workplace accidents by the HSE and government(s).

The Building industry has been the subject of "special attention" by the HSE over the last decade with Safety in that industry being transformed throughout that period.

Anyone only has to look at any construction site these days with scaffolding throughout and that scaffolding being clad to stop falls of tools and personal.

Hoists, dump trucks and even forklifts have replaced much manual handling on construction sites allowing a vastly better health and injury statistics for all employed in the industry.

There is always more to be achieved but the above speaks for itself I believe.

Apologies my post @17:43 the end of the third paragraph should read "overall" and not "year on year".

If you are not allowed to identify a problem how do you stand a chance of fixing it?

Why we need health and safety at work now more than ever
Sarah O’Connor MAY 26 2020

Boris Johnson has promised health and safety spot checks as people return to work. But across the country, the teams of inspectors have been decimated in the Conservatives’ drive to cut red tape.

Covid-19 has upended our notion of what a dangerous job looks like. Builders, miners and quarry workers always lived with a certain amount of risk. But in the coronavirus economy, care homes are the new coal mines. Other ordinary jobs are suddenly perilous too. Chefs, security guards, taxi drivers and shop assistants are dying at higher than average rates from Covid-19 in the UK. The British government, desperate to revive the economy, has told millions to return to work. Little wonder many are scared to do so.

Boris Johnson’s response has been to publish guidance for employers on how to protect workers, backed by the promise of regulatory enforcement. “We are going to insist that businesses across this country look after their workers and are Covid-secure,” the prime minister said this month. “The Health and Safety Executive [the regulator] will be enforcing that and we will have spot inspections to make sure that businesses are keeping their employees safe.”

The trouble is, Mr Johnson’s plan to restart the economy safely relies on a regulator that has been systematically weakened by his own party. After a Conservative-led coalition was elected in 2010, ministers promised a bonfire of red tape for “a more growth-focused, entrepreneurial” nation. “If we try to legislate out all risk, we will lose jobs to other places,” Conservative minister Chris Grayling explained in 2013.

“You should have as light a touch as possible, that is what the HSE was constantly being told,” a member of the HSE’s board at that time said. Funding has been cut by more than £100m since 2010 to some £130m. Its workforce shrank by one-third to about 2,400.

What has happened to the HSE is only half the story. The job of enforcing health and safety law is split between the HSE and the country’s 380 or so local authorities. The latter are responsible for “lower-risk” workplaces. Private care homes for the elderly, which Covid-19 has been ripping through, are their responsibility (the HSE takes the more medicalised nursing homes). Retail warehouses, shops and restaurants fall to local authority inspectors.

Yet the number of full-time equivalent local authority health and safety inspectors has halved since 2010 to just 480. My analysis of official data suggests more than 140 authorities employ fewer than one full-time equivalent inspector.

As well as cutting resources, the government told the HSE and local authorities in 2011 to reduce proactive inspections by one-third. A final progress report on the reforms shows the HSE complied and cut its spot checks to some 22,000 a year, while local authorities, crushed by austerity cuts, reduced theirs by 95 per cent to about 6,300.

So who exactly will perform Mr Johnson’s “spot checks”, especially in so-called lower-risk sectors, such as care homes that are clearly now high-risk? The HSE has failed to send me an answer. The regulator has been promised £14m of extra funding, which will help bolster call-centre staff. But it takes years to train new inspectors. “We’re struggling to find things HSE could spend it on that would do any good in the timescale,” said an HSE employee who is a representative for the trade union Prospect. “The government has suddenly said they want an immediate response, but the organisation has been so hollowed out over the years that it can’t provide an effective immediate response.”

PS. This was written before the situation on Leicester became apparent to the general public.