Health and Safety: Common Sense Common Safety

Lord Ramsbotham Excerpts

Thursday 25th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ramsbotham]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Young, on initiating this debate and I welcome his report. I have to admit that my contribution will be devoted to one issue that is deeply affected by three of his recommendations, which propose: a shift from a system of risk assessment to a system of risk-benefit assessment; a review of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act to separate play and leisure from the workplace context; and the abolition of the Adventure Activities Licensing Authority and the replacement of such licensing with a code of practice. I note with interest that the Adventure Activities Licensing Authority is not one of the organisations threatened with abolition or merger in the Public Bodies Bill.

As I have said before in this House, the only raw material that every nation has in common is its people and woe betide a nation if it does not do everything possible to identify, nurture and develop the talents of its people—all its people—because, otherwise, it will have only itself to blame if it fails. For the past 15 years, I have been working with those at the bottom of the national pack—namely, offenders and those at risk of offending. You often find that they have been neglected in a whole variety of ways, including by parents and schools, but when notice is taken of them and opportunities are put their way, they seize them and demonstrate abilities that can be harnessed and developed to the benefit not only of themselves but of the communities in which they live. At the heart of that process is challenging people to do things that they did not think they could do, because the resulting self-esteem is the key to further progress. Many of the challenges involve risk.

Here, I declare an interest as a member of the advisory board of Youth at Risk, which is an organisation involved in providing those challenges. For several years, Youth at Risk has been working in the hardest of inner-city areas and in young offender institutions. For the past three years, it has been running community transformation programmes for 10 local councils across the United Kingdom that are designed to work with young people at risk of poor outcomes. During this time, the organisation has worked with more than 1,700 young people and 2,200 adults, of whom 100 per cent reported that they were able to develop more stable relationships, 63 per cent said that their self-esteem had been improved and 75 per cent reported that they were more able to support others. Typically, those young people included 80 per cent with behavioural, social and/or emotional problems; 60 per cent who were involved in gangs; and 30 per cent who were involved in gun and knife crime.

The evaluation found that the programme successfully engages with vulnerable young people, who engage because they are inspired by the opportunity to change their lives. The statistics prove that they are more determined to achieve as a result. At the same time, the programme has been rolled out in schools and now works with young people who have challenging behaviour that is destructive to their and others’ learning. The programme looks after those whose self-esteem, belief and aspirations need development as well as very able pupils who are at risk of becoming young offenders. All that has been summed up in a poem by two young participants of which I would like to quote one verse:

“Ready to work together so that we might stand tall,

We've learned all about pride before a fall.

As I said there’s no us and them, there’s no square,

LIFE IS A RISK THAT WE ARE WILLING TO DARE.

Like the challenge course, life is no breeze;

We’re about bringing mountains to their knees”.

Despite all that evidence, the sad fact is that Youth at Risk is having to withdraw its programme from one of the councils because the health and safety restrictions being imposed in effect remove the ability to undertake any form of challenging programme that contains the slightest risk. However, the results of overcoming fear and surmounting challenges are clear for all to see. If ever there was an example of the truth of an unenforceable rule that I found displayed on an Army notice board, “A breach of common sense is a breach of the rules”, this is it.

Like other noble Lords who have had the privilege of visiting our Armed Forces in operations in Iraq or Afghanistan, I came back exhilarated and humbled by that experience. The Armed Forces demonstrate very clearly how today's young people respond to challenge and risk. What do those responsible for taking risk out of their lives think about the impact on the future of our country of risk-averse generations? As the Prime Minister says in his report,

“We simply cannot go on like this”.

Of course, health and safety is important but the collective madness that is daily exercised in its name is not only a breach of common sense but is endangering our present and our future.

I hope that the recommendations in the report will be actioned as swiftly as possible before yet more community transformation programmes have to be cancelled. Organisations such as Youth at Risk are performing a job of national importance. Woe betide us if we do not do everything that we can to support them and to prevent what they are doing for our present and our future being itself put at risk by all the unnecessary restrictions, which are so clearly described by the noble Lord, Lord Young, in his admirable report.