As I stated before, 'We' may think that we understand that this was geared towards the ambulance chasing/compensation culture but the wider audience will still read this as Health and Safety as a whole. That's why this is such a contentious issue.

I wrote to a fairly National Welsh newspaper which published a report on the Prime Ministers response to a question from a newspaper reporter about H&S. 'When will the Prime Minister realise that he is constantly trying to change something that in general requires no change at all. Two reports one of which was independent have shown that there is very little wrong with the current Health and Safety legislation in this country. He ( Lofstedt, concluded that "The general sweep of requirements set out in health and safety regulations are broadly fit for purpose but there are a few which offer little benefit to health and safety and which the Goverment should remove, or clarify". He went on to say that the biggest problem is some regulatory requirments are missunderstood and applied inappropriately'. 'To describe H&S law as an Albatross shows he, the Prime Minister, seems to have an inbuilt hatred of H&S law which after all was developed to protect those at work and has been around since the first welfare act was put on the statute book in 1802. Lord Robens reported on the state of H&S management in the UK following several major disasters and this was followed by the creation of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act in 1974. Prior to this there was pronciple of passing laws for specific issues which resulted in a mass of very old and out of date legislation most of which has now already been repealed and repalced by far more relevant laws. Therefore both Lord Young and Professor Lofstedt concluded that there is little wrong with the H&S law currently in place'. However, the issue of no win no fee organisations chasing claims, in America they are called ambulance chasers, is the most problamatic issue, we are bombarded daily by television adverts for no win no fee companies and often hounded by street tarders trying to sell such services. Coupled to this is the constant press over statements about the daft H&S issues many of which are miss reported or even lied about. On top of this there is a somewhat over zealous approch used by mainly the public sector simply because of conditions placed upon employers etc by insurance companies, who after all are trying to make profits from customers without the risk of having to payout should anything go wrong'. As I said when will the Prime Minister stop trying to devise the answer he wants and accept what learned people are saying about H&S law in this country.

50% of what though? I would question Lofstedt as well. Lofstedt only mentioned a few specific Regulations that can go - slightly better than Young's daft suggestion of single set of Regulations. The rest of Lofstedt's 35% was aspiration - leaving it to budget-slashed already under-resourced HSE to get in to the detail within a tight deadline. Having said that, at least Lofstedt was constructive in his analysis. I have spent years promoting positive H&S cultures at work - generally successfully - against a back drop of tabloid influence to people who read the anti-H&S press. For Cameron to describe H&S cultures as a 'monster' is undermining to positive and professional H&S management cultures at work and unforgivingly contemptuous to families of people who have been killed due to negligence at work.

I see what you mean Jay. So it's a bit like clearing out old junk in the loft that you had forgotten even existed and giving the impression it will make the rooms in the house tidier!