The petition of Maria Georgina Dennis,
Declares that the petitioner’s 11-year old son was tragically killed in December 2022, when an unsecured scaffold board came loose from the back of a flatbed van and travelled through the windscreen of the petitioner’s vehicle; notes that the Health and Safety Executive wrote in her report that the securing of the load was “grossly inadequate” and “the insecure loading caused an immediate and likely risk of ‘harm’”; and further notes that the defendant protested in court that he had not been trained properly.
The petitioner therefore requests that the House of Commons urge the Government to review current laws and guidance followed by scaffolding businesses and ensure that scaffolding personnel must, by law, be a member of a governing body who are responsible for controlling how scaffolding businesses are run including safety standards, strengthening skills training and to improve the level of scaffolding competence.
And the petitioners remain, etc.—[Presented by Helena Dollimore , Official Report, 12 February 2025; Vol. 762, c. 354.]
[P003044]
Observations from the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Lilian Greenwood):
I want to begin by offering my sincere condolences to Maria Dennis and her family.
On 9 December 2024, Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency, with support from Health and Safety Executive, published updated guidance on the safe loading of vehicles. This includes a section specifically covering scaffolding loads. The updated guidance has been communicated to operator licence holders directly and through social media channels. Under section 2 of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, employers must ensure their drivers have sufficient training, knowledge and experience if they are loading and securing their own vehicles, to ensure safety of the load and that of other road users.
Furthermore, I have met with Maria Dennis and her MP and instructed Department for Transport officials to explore the possibility of a load security awareness course being offered as an alternative to a fixed penalty—like the approach taken for minor speeding offences—and to look at how to raise awareness of the existing guidance on load securing published on
www.gov.uk.
The request to mandate a governing body for the scaffolding industry is not a matter for my Department. My officials have made the Department for Work and Pensions aware.