Michael Clapham

Labour Party | Barnsley West and Penistone

MP fights for young worker safety

10 June 2008

MP fights for young worker safety

Barnsley West and Penistone MP Michael Clapham is to host a seminar where MPs and peers will be discussing the safety of young workers.

Mr Clapham, the chair of the Occupational Safety and Health All Party Parliamentary Group, will host the seminar in the House of Commons. He'll be joined by health and safety minister, Lord McKenzie of Luton, Andrew Selous MP, Shadow Work and Pensions Minister, Liberal Democrat Shadow Work and Pensions Minister, Paul Rowen MP and chair of the Work and Pensions Select Committee, Terry Rooney MP, in speaking at the event.

The seminar seeks to highlight the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health's (IOSH's) 'Putting young workers first' campaign and the Workplace Hazard Awareness Course (WHAC), which IOSH designed and developed and was joint-funded by the HSE. A qualification is also offered by the British Safety Council from it.

Mr Clapham said: "In the last decade, 63 young lives have been lost in needless workplace accidents. Over 15,000 other young people have suffered serious injury. These figures are a shocking indictment of some employer's attitudes to their workers – an attitude that isn’t acceptable in the 21st century.

"I've arranged this seminar because I want to see what we can do to help prevent further loss of young lives when they enter the workplace in the future. In WHAC, we have a tool which is capable of helping us achieve this and I want to see how we can help get this invaluable course made compulsory for all students on the National Curriculum before they leave school and go to work for the first time."

Ray Hurst, the president of IOSH, said: "WHAC is about encouraging young people to ask the right questions about health and safety in workplaces, enabling them to protect themselves and others. It will also help them to be better employees.

"This seminar which Michael Clapham has helped organise will play a key role in helping highlight the unnecessary loss of young people's lives in Britain's workplaces. I hope it will also help us to ramp up pressure on the government to get WHAC on the national curriculum."