Lawford Kidd's Blog

Labour Party MSP Richard Baker (North East Scotland region) has called for changes to the existing laws governing corporate homicide, saying they are "not able to cope with modern times and, in particular, modern business and other relationships". In Scotland, there are on average 20 workplace fatalities per year, and in 2012/13 22 people died.

The MSP is now consulting on a proposed Culpable Homicide (Scotland) Bill to this effect, although it is unlikely it will materialise before to 2016 Scottish parliamentary elections.

A newly-published survey which was conducted jointly by the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH) and the Construction Dust Partnership (CDP), which aimed to discover how well issues with on-site dust risks are controlled and perceived, has shown that workers feel the issue of hazardous dust must be highlighted more in their workplace.

The results of the joint survey - which questioned more than 600 workers from throughout the construction industry - show that 44 per cent of workers currently feel that the industry considers the control of construction dust of "very little" priority. By contrast, just 12.5 per cent thought it was considered "a priority health issue".

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) and the National Farmers Union Scotland (NFUS) have together urged farmers to review their safety measures and take extra care following an inquiry into the death of Lauder farmer, Jim Sharp.

Mr Sharp, who was 66, was tragically killed earlier this year in an accident at Newbigging Walls Farm, after he became entangled with a sweep auger in a grain silo.

The Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH) has, this week, made calls for more research to be carried out to find out whether migrant workers face higher health and safety risks, when compared to local workers. If, as expected, migrant workers are at a greater risk, IOSH believes research will help protect to protect these employees.

Language skills, cultural differences and inexperience are all factors which could place migrant workers at higher risk, but IOSH has stated that research so far has shown there is no method of identifying whether there are any specific health and safety risks for migrant workers or not, and therefore more research must be done.

Following a month-long inspection of 1,748 repair and refurbishment building sites, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has issued a clear warning to construction firms to do more to protect their workers from the danger of asbestos exposure.

Worryingly, their investigation found that two in five building sites inspected did not provide adequate protection for staff, and one in five sites were so poor that formal enforcement action was required. Exposure to asbestos was featured on the list of serious failures, but other basic safety failures for people working at height were most prevalent.