UK’s Enduring Asbestos Shame
In recent weeks there has been a flurry of media coverage in newspapers and online about various aspects of the UK’s asbestos epidemic whether it be the hazard posed by asbestos material remaining in the built environment, the sale of asbestos-containing cosmetics or widespread failures to comply with mandatory safety guidelines and regulations.
A hard-hitting article published on October 19, 2024 by Steve Boggan was a primer for the hundreds of MPs taking their places “for their first full year in Parliament.”1 The new MPs are “blissfully ignorant” of the asbestos fibers co-existing with them in the UNESCO heritage building having been told “that their working environment is safe, that the 2,500 locations in 680 rooms where asbestos has been discovered in the Palace are being properly managed.” No, they’re not. Boggan detailed two recent incidents where 100+ workers were exposed to asbestos in the House of Commons and the tower housing Big Ben.
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In the intervening days since the Daily Mail first published Boggan’s article, the newspaper has continued its coverage of the asbestos scandal and launched a campaign – Asbestos: Britain's Hidden Killer – to establish a digital national asbestos database to prevent avoidable exposures as part of “a long-term strategic plan to eradicate asbestos risk from British infrastructure.”2 Credit to the Daily Mail – words I thought I would never write – for stepping up. A shame that they’ve had to do so but after successive government failures to address the nation’s asbestos crisis, it was well past time for some high-profile action.3 One can but hope that the new 335 MPs, who constitute a majority of the House of Commons, will be more proactive on this deadly workplace hazard than their predecessors, after all the asbestos hazard in Parliament not only endangers their lives but that of “the 3,000 staff who serve them” and the members of the public who come to consult them.
The litany of lies told by decades of bureaucrats, civil servants and politicians over government failures to act on the incorporation of six million tonnes of chrysotile, amosite and crocidolite asbestos into the UK infrastructure provides more than enough material for a dozen PhD theses. The people who fought valiantly to expose these lies were many; a new publication about Hull campaigner Dick Jackson is well worth a read.4
 Picture, courtesy of Archives and Special Collections, University of Strathclyde Library. |
Dick was an insulation engineer, a dockyard worker, a trade union safety representative, a grassroots organizer, an asbestos victims’ advocate and an international campaigner. On July 15, 1979, he founded Hull Action on Safety and Health, later renamed Hull Asbestos Action Group (HAAG), and over the next fifteen years proceeded to fight 250 compensation cases and help “turn the tide of industrial and medical opinion” on asbestos. He died on October 30th, 1994 from the signature asbestos cancer, mesothelioma. Thirty years on, we are still fighting many of the same battles.
October 29, 2024
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1 Boggan, S. Exposed. How the Palace of Westminster is riddled with deadly asbestos – and there have already been two terrifying incidences which may have endangered workers and Mps. October 19, 2024.
[Subscription site]: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13975727/EXPOSED-Palace-Westminster-riddled-deadly-asbestos-two-terrifying-incidents-endangered-workers-MPs.html
Gill, R. What is the real risk from asbestos in schools? October 23, 2024.
https://neu.org.uk/latest/library/what-real-risk-asbestos-schools
2 Boggan, S., Pollard, C. EXCLUSIVE. Fears of 'tsunami' of deaths from asbestos in UK schools: Poisonous building material could kill hundreds of thousands of former pupils and teachers, damning report says. October 20, 2024.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13981073/asbestos-classroom-kill-report-warns-campaign-public-buildings.html
Boggan, S. Horrifying extent of NHS asbestos danger exposed: Dr Janet Leese died from asbestos-related cancer... and she's one of thousands of victims working in hospitals riddled with the toxic fibres. October 28, 2024.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14008343/NHS-asbestos-danger-Dr-Janet-Leese-died-cancer-victims-hospitals-toxic-fibres.html
Ellicott, C. Allen, V. Sir Keir Starmer backs Daily Mail campaign to strip 'awful killer' asbestos from schools and hospitals. October 21, 2024.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13984739/Keir-Starmer-Daily-Mail-campaign-strip-asbestos-schools-hospitals.html
3 As recently as 2022 a Parliamentary Committee, chaired by Sir Stephen Timms, advised that a phased national eradication program be implemented with a forty-year deadline for the removal of asbestos from public and commercial buildings. The Conservative Government rejected this and the Committee’s other recommendations out of hand.
Kazan-Allen, L. Parliament Call for Asbestos Eradication Program. May 3, 2022.
http://ibasecretariat.org/lka-parliament-call-for-asbestos-eradication-program.php
Committee publishes Government response to asbestos management report. July 21, 2022.
https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/164/work-and-pensions-committee/news/172269/committee-publishes-government-response-to-asbestos-management-report/
4 White, Tom. Remembering Richard Jackson. October 27, 2024.
https://redridingmag.com/2024/10/27/richard-jackson/
