Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps the Government and Government agencies are taking to work together to reduce work-related illness and deaths.

The Government and its agencies have brought a renewed focus to the health and safety system by working to: maintain the gains made in safety at work, while giving health the same priority; keep people in work through good health and safety management; and help people return to work through the right support and advice. This approach looks to build on the considerable strengths of the health and safety system whilst addressing its continuing challenges: the ever-changing nature of work and the needs of an increasingly ageing population.

The approach is under pinned by three key strategies: the Government’s Green Paper, Work, Health and Disability: Improving Lives, which sets out the Government’s proposals for improving work and health outcomes for people with long-term health conditions; HSE’s Health and Work Strategy, which addresses the occupational health problems which most commonly afflict the working population; and the strategy for Great Britain’s wider occupational health and safety system, Helping Great Britain work well.

This combined approach seeks active participation of business and the wider community in delivering lasting health and safety benefits as these issues cannot be addressed by the Government, and its agencies, acting in isolation.