Envex Company Limited - More UK work deaths 'than murders'

The Centre for Crime and Justice Studies (CCJS) has accused the Government of undermining enforcement by promoting self-regulation of health and safety laws.

The report said the Government is "prepared to let employers kill and maim with impunity", by allowing "safety crimes" to go undetected, under-reported, and uninvestigated.

Authors, Professor Steve Tombs of Liverpool John Moores University and Dr David Whyte of the University of Liverpool, say the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is suffering from a "crisis in enforcement" with fewer staff, a reduction in inspections, and those who break the law unlikely to be prosecuted.

The report said there is a "remarkable contrast" between the "deafening silence" surrounding such deaths and injuries, and the "moral panic that characterises social responses to most 'mainstream' violent crime".

It said: "The policy shift towards a model of self-regulation that became most pronounced in the second Blair government... is sending a clear, calculated message to corporate criminals that, under New Labour, they will be even freer to kill and injure with impunity."

Official Health and Safety Executive figures put fatal injuries to workers at 217 in England and Wales for the year 2005-6.

But the CCJS says work-related fatal injuries are more likely to be five to six times that number, between 1,100 and 1,300. In the same period there were 765 recorded homicides.

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