We have to expose ourselves to risk, says chief

Mrs Hackitt, the head of the Health and Safety Executive, told an audience of Yorkshire students that 171 people died at work last year in the UK, and more than 24,000 people suffered serious injuries.

She visited Yorkshire yesterday to receive an honorary doctorate in engineering from Leeds Metropolitan University as part of the winter graduation celebrations.

She told the Yorkshire Post that there was no need for further health and safety legislation.

She said: “The things that need to be done to stop those horrible accidents and fatalities are things we already know about.

“We need to recognise the risks and deal with them.

“There are people out there using health and safety as an excuse to hide behind. It would be easy to manage health and safety down to zero if we were never going to take any risks at all in our lives.

“That’s not the way any of us want to live. It would be a pretty dull existence if we did. We all know that the only way to deal with the risks around us is to take sensible precautions.

“We have to expose ourselves to risk. The workplace is no different.”

In the summer, Mrs Hackitt issued an open letter criticising Wimbledon’s decision to switch off its giant screen on Murray Mount in case fans slipped and injured themselves on the wet slope.

She mocked its officials, writing “people have been walking up and down wet grassy slopes for years without catastrophic consequences”.

She said the HSE could not let the decision “pass unchallenged”.

In response, Ian Ritchie, chief executive of the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club, said he was staggered, amazed and flabbergasted by Mrs Hackitt’s actions.

Mrs Hackitt said yesterday: “There are dozens of examples where, rather than explain the real reasons, people simply say ‘it’s health and safety’ because they think they won’t get challenged.

“It pushes the blame on to somebody else. Health and safety is about stopping people being killed and injured in the workplace.

“That’s what it’s about. That’s where it ends.

“All of this other nonsense is nothing to do with the real agenda. If we could get people to focus on the real stuff, we could start saving some of those lives.

“There’s no doubt there’s too much red tape and too much bureaucracy linked to health and safety. I don’t think it’s the case that there’s too much true regulation.”

Mrs Hackitt has spent her career challenging convention.

She became a chemical engineer after studying at Imperial College, London, as one of only four female students in her year.

A recent initiative from the Institution of Chemical Engineers saw her become a hit on YouTube. She set fire to her hands in front of a classroom of schoolchildren who were stunned to discover that science lessons could be exciting.

In 2009 she starred in a TV debate about ‘cotton wool’ kids. She argued that there should be more practical experiments in the classroom.

She said yesterday: “The HSE is taking its share of the cuts across the public sector. We’re seeing a reduction over the next four years of some 35 per cent in our Government funding.

“We’re having to make reductions in our back office staff and efficiencies like any other organisation has to do.

“We will continue to concentrate our activity in those areas that have the highest risk.”

She said mining construction, agriculture, waste and recycling were among the sectors on the list of high risk activities.

She added: “I went into industry not long after the Flixborough accident happened in 1974, which killed a large number of people on a chemical plant, so it was always writ large for me how important health and safety was in the business I was going to work in.”

The workplace is a lot safer

In a speech to Leeds Metropolitan University’s winter graduation, Judith Hackitt, the chairman of the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), said there had been a “remarkable” improvement in workplace safety over the last 40 years.

She warned the audience that too many workplace accidents could be prevented.

She added: “But at the same time ‘health and safety’ as a subject has become a bit of a joke – seen by many as all about banning anything else that’s remotely fun to do.

“Real health and safety is about the serious stuff – not about all of this nonsense that is done in its name. Everyone who goes to work should come home safely.”