Posted By Geoff Burt
Peter
I would say they have voiced a genuine concern. Whatever, I have taken the liberty of reproducing the letter below - it brings out some aspects not previously in the public domain It is well worth reading and ties in with a number of aspects discussed on this forum.
Geoff
To: Rt Hon Andrew Smith MP
Secretary of State
Department of Work & Pensions
28th August 2002
The Leader of the Opposition wrote to you last Wednesday to complain that your Department is proposing to implement changes to the Control of Asbestos Work Regulations before Parliament returns and without any Member of Parliament or of the public having had the chance to study and respond to the text of the Regulations. Given that the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) itself has estimated that the cost of the new Regulations will be £5.1 billion and that one other estimate has suggested a potential cost of £80 billion, it does seem an extraordinarily cavalier way for you to proceed.
No-one disputes that blue and brown asbestos are extremely dangerous and that the toughest regulatory regime to protect people is required. However, it is far from clear at this stage that similar such action is needed in relation to white asbestos. You will no doubt be aware that 85% of all asbestos in Britain takes the form of white asbestos cement which safely encapsulates the asbestos fibres for use in products such as roof slates. Many experts argue that there is no evidence that white asbestos is ordinarily harmful, still less lethal. If you think otherwise, it is your duty to publish the evidence and to launch a serious public debate on the issue.
My understanding is that the HSE is basing the proposed changes to the Regulations on research into asbestos undertaken by Professor Julian Peto. This is curious because a Study by Dr Alan Gibbs and Professor F Pooley in 1995 appeared to show that Professor Peto had misread the evidence and that the asbestos residues in workers’ lungs which he studied came from blue and brown asbestos, not white. Furthermore, I gather that there are at least 19 other scientific research projects which conclude that white asbestos is a low risk substance. Most of these studies have apparently been commissioned by the Health and Safety Executive itself. Indeed, the Executive reported to the World Trade Organisation in 1992 that white asbestos had a risk to health “too small to be measured”. As recently as June 2000, the HSE published a report by John Hodgson and Andrew Darnton about risks to health from asbestos exposure. They concluded that the risk from white asbestos was theoretically zero and were criticised by some scientists for exaggerating its risks! I am advised that Hodgson and Darnton based their report on the work of Professor Peto and were unaware of the US Court decision in 1991, which overturned the 1989 total ban in the United States on all asbestos. As you presumably know, the US judge stated in that case that “more people would die of the inhalation of toothpicks in the US than they would from asbestos fibres”. Both the HSE and the European Union describe white asbestos as a Class 1 carcinogen. However, oral contraceptives, alcohol and nickel compounds all fall into the same category. Furthermore, I understand that the only tests conducted on white asbestos show its carcinogenic potential for humans to be above 160 years at levels of exposure approximately 200 times those at which the HSE recommends regulatory action. The advice that I have received is that most raw materials, including the so called safe alternatives to asbestos, are all carcinogenic but that the finished products containing the fibres are not.
All of the above findings are significant and should be the subject of full and careful debate before the Government makes new law. Yet it is perhaps even more striking to recall what is stated in the UKREP briefing to Members of the European Parliament. Referring to proposed amendments to the Regulations, it observes that they are “likely to incur significant costs for British businesses in remedial measures, including possible liability for compulsory building surveys of ‘all’ commercial property in the UK.” It goes on to add “similar proposals were rejected in the USA as ‘unnecessary’. There is also strong evidence that both EC Directives and HSE Regulations on this issue are based on flawed research.”
It is now already abundantly clear that, even before the HSC’s proposed new Control of Asbestos at Work regulations are put into law, confusion over the law and science relating to asbestos is being very widely exploited to inflict serious financial damage on tens of thousands of homeowners, businesses and public bodies, including local authorities and hospitals.
This should become a matter of urgent political concern, not least because of the highly dubious part played in this story by the HSE.
The power exercised by accredited specialist contractors, particularly those belonging to the Asbestos Removal Contractors Association (ARCA), and surveyors, particularly members of the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS), is a matter of legitimate concern. You surely have a responsibility to consider whether they are exploiting their privileged position to exaggerate the dangers of asbestos. There is evidence of grotesque over charging of the public for work which either turns out on inspection to be unnecessary, or which almost invariably could be legally and safely carried out for a fraction of the cost.
Here are some of the chief areas in which it is now evident that this wholesale exploitation of the public is becoming a public scandal.
1. Building societies (eg the Cheltenham and Gloucester) are refusing to give mortgages on properties unless harmless asbestos cement is removed by specialist contractors, often at costs running into thousands of pounds.
2. Estate agents and surveyors are advising that properties must be devalued by tens of thousands of pounds (there are examples of up to £35,000 each) unless asbestos products which pose no health risk are removed by specialist contractors.
3. Surveyors and members of ARCA are advising that work to remove white asbestos or asbestos cement products posing no risk must be carried out by specialist contractors at hugely inflated cost. For instance, a businessman who wished to remove storm-damaged barns containing asbestos sheeting near Merthyr Tydfil received almost identical quotes of £50,000 from two ARCA-registered firms. On the advice of a qualified surveyor not involved in the cartel, the work was safely and legally carried out by a builder for £4,000. The operators of a Pembrokeshire canteen were advised that it would cost them £100,000 to have an entire asbestos ceiling removed. After inspection by an independent surveyor, it was found that only two slightly damaged panels needed to be taken out, at a cost of less than £100.
4. On several occasions, where asbestos-related work could be carried out legally and safely by a builder not licensed by the HSE, the HSE has intervened to insist that the work must be given to tan ARCA member. In one case, at Dulverton, Somerset, where a qualified surveyor had cleared with HSE in London that a local builder could, for no more than £50, safely remove a short length of asbestos pipe under the ‘small works provisions’, the HSE’s London head office was overruled by the agency’s Bristol office, which insisted on the contract going to an ARCA firm at a cost of £4,000.
5. Even more worryingly, we have two fully-investigated instances where, following the safe removal of small quantities of white asbestos by a local builder not holding an HSE licence, the same ARCA firm has intervened to call for the criminal prosecution of the builders by the HSE, and has then been shown to have falsified evidence to suggest that the original work was not carried out correctly. In one instance, the builder was prosecuted, blackmailed into pleading guilty to a lesser charge and fined £5,000. In the other, on fraudulent evidence supplied by the ARCA firm, the builder was threatened by an insurance company with a bill for £50,000 (and also with prosecution by the HSE). In each of these instances, the HSE was subsequently forced to concede that the evidence had been falsified (but too late for the innocent builder who had been blackmailed into pleading guilty, thus earning himself a criminal record).
6. Another case of fraud by an ARCA member is currently being investigated by trading standards officers in west London. Residents of a block of flats who had been charged £40,000 for the removal of asbestos contacted the Sunday Telegraph when the same firm advised them that more asbestos had been discovered, after sampling, and would have to be removed at a cost of £60,000. When they were put in touch with an independent surveyor he discovered that no samples had been taken and that there was no asbestos in the building.
I believe the picture conveyed by these examples, (and there are dozens more) is sufficiently serious for this matter to be urgently considered by you and debated in Parliament. If documentary evidence is required to support them, it can be made available.
All this is happening even before the HSE has put into law its proposed new regulations, requiring all workplaces to carry out a full asbestos survey, risk assessment and monitoring programme. On the evidence of confusion and sharp practice now available, this will merely provide the more unscrupulous surveyors and contractors with a field day, unwittingly aided and abetted by the HSE, at a cost to the UK economy far greater than the £5.1 billion which is the HSE’s own estimate of the cost of compliance with the new regime.
We all have a responsibility to protect the public. I take that responsibility every bit as seriously as you do. In order to discharge it, and to ensure that only necessary costs are incurred, it is vital that regulation should be based upon sound science, and credible assessments of risk. It would be a grave dereliction of duty if regulation based on flawed science were forced through without adequate scrutiny and at the cost of billion of pounds to businesses and householders across the country. Please give this matter your immediate attention. I look forward to your early reply.
John Bercow
John Bercow MP
29/08/2002