Politicians give IOSH hope on health and safety
15 October 2012
After attending all three annual
conferences for the UK's main political parties, IOSH can look back
on some fantastic achievements.
The initial aim was to invite Conservative, Labour and Liberal
Democrat party members to ‘get a new perspective’ on health and
safety. We wanted to replace the notion of ‘elf and safety as
portrayed in the media, with an understanding of what our members
do on a day-to-day basis.
So we spoke to hundreds of delegates on our exhibition stand,
held meetings with MPs and Peers, asked questions at a number of
fringe events and even managed to intercept a Secretary of State or
two as they walked from venue to venue.
On top of that, we kept you posted on through Twitter, Facebook
and the IOSH blog, making sure you were aware of what we are
doing.
Speaking afterwards, IOSH head of policy and
public affairs Richard Jones said: “The number of MPs on board with
our way of thinking grows ever larger, and the conference season
has certainly accelerated that.
"It has been great to hear so many MPs and
Peers indicating that they get health and safety, and understand
the difference between what our members do, and what the media
report. Perhaps the tide is turning in our fight against
nonsense health and safety stories.”
IOSH also took advantage of the Conservative Party Conference to
grab a quick word with the new Employment Minister, Mark Hoban MP,
who wanted to meet IOSH at the Department for Work and Pensions
when parliament returns.
IOSH public affairs adviser Andrew Baldwin
said: “Mark was very happy to set up a meeting at the Department,
which we’ll be sorting out straight away. We built up a
decent working relationship with Chris Grayling and we want to do
the same with Mark Hoban.
“This, on top of all the other contacts we
have made, means we are in a great position now to raise our
members’ concerns at the highest level.”
Contact us to find out
more about IOSH’s work during the conference season.