Authentic Polish Haggis
A world-beating haggis factory yesterday gave me a glimpse of Britain's economic frailties.
For the past couple of days I've been in Scotland recording interviews for a documentary on the health of the Scottish private sector to be broadcast on Radio 4 towards the end of March.
This took me to , just outside Edinburgh. In disinfected white Wellington boots and hygienic hairnet, I watched skilled workers manufacture their award-winning Caledonian delicacy. It is a third-generation family business, which turns over more than £2m a year and supplies Selfridges, Harrods and Tesco, among others.
Their classic haggis is made to a family recipe in the traditional way: the casing is ox intestine.
But for health and safety reasons, it's becoming harder and harder to find the authentic viscera. Ever since the in Britain, domestic bovine intestines have been on the banned list. And Macsween is also prohibited from buying the stuff from any country where there has been a suspected BSE outbreak.
The result is a dwindling number of countries able to supply Macsween and a cost for the guts which is becoming steeper and steeper.
These days Jo Macsween - grand-daughter of the founder - has to go all the way to to purchase the long white intestinal strips, which look like woollen stockings, because she is simply not allowed to buy them in most wealthier and more developed countries.
I was impressed that she takes enormous pains to ensure that she is buying a healthy product. But there is something counter-intuitive about food safety rules that force her to scour far flung corners of the world in order to make this quintessentially Scottish food.
Are the rules rational? Would there really be a risk to health if locally-sourced intestine were used now that our herd is BSE free?
I am not suggesting there is anything wrong with Uruguayan innards. But I cannot help but wonder whether some of the countries where Macsween is allowed to buy intestine are only viewed as disease-free because their monitoring systems leave something to be desired.
The broad issue here is whether some consumer-protection regulation leads to irrational and sub-optimal results.
Would a delicately calibrated risk-based analysis really conclude that Uruguayan salt-preserved intestine is safer than British?
And, as another recent example, was there a meaningful risk to health from those that didn't contain the standard nut-allergy warning? Was all the waste precipitated by the product recall really necessary, or are we in the grips of an officially sanctioned national hysteria that transforms improbable outcomes into real and present dangers?
Then there's Macsween's workforce. Guess what? A fair number are Poles, who are adored by Jo Macsween.
She lauds them as well educated, meticulous, thrifty and hardworking.
By contrast her experience of local unemployed young Scots is disappointing. If out of work for any length of time, she says they are typically unenthusiastic, unreliable and unproductive. If she can avoid employing them - which she can thanks to the arrival of the Poles - then she does.
The alleged shortcomings in the way that many in the UK bring up their children, as highlighted by , may not be unrelated to the dysfunction of young unemployed adults. The story told by Macsween's haggis, cased in Uruguayan guts and made by Poles, should prompt us to ask whether our regulations, the way we bring up children and our educational system are burdens or boons in the life-or-death global economic battles ahead.
Update 10:39 AM: Just to clarify...
What I am talking about here is the unintended consequences of well-meaning regulations. Obviously in this case I am looking specifically at legal and regulatory risks related to food safety (and not health and safety at work, for example).
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Welcome to New Britain.
Our rules are over-zealous and our welfare system makes it too easy to be lazy.
Things have only got better.
As the proprietor of a small internet and web design consultancy I can't say I've hit many problems to do with H&S... but we're in the service industry here. So there's little in the way of heavy lifting, no particularly awkward regulations, and it's certainly a little easier than trying to set up the same business in many other European countries.
However, I do worry about where I'll find new staff when the time comes to grow. At busy times we outsource some work to South America, where we find enthusiastic, knowledgeable and skilled web designers who are willing to work for a good price (no, not an exploitative one!) and the results so far are proving remarkable.
But let's not blame our youth and say it's all their problem. I go to countries with relatively low employment levels because there I can get the pick of the very best who are looking for work. In the UK the very best are already working hard. What's left need training and support from industry, and our education system needs to make sure that people realise that working in a haggis factory, for example, isn't 'losing'.
It strikes me that this is another of the ill advised, not thought out, half baked New Labour ideas that have been the feature of the past ten years. Scrap all of this nonsense and all of the other New Labour lunacies I say!
I think Health & Safety has a lot to answer for! The health of people with nut allergies is relativley recent as we are no so clinically clean in where we work and live. My mother had no such problems when she was expecting with eating nut etc. We grew up where we built up imunity to disease. These days, we are not alloowed to find out hings for our selves or make our w=own minds up as to what we eat or do. It might do us harm or upset someone!!
Health & Safety staff were young once - didn't they play without a cre in the world and without saftey hats when cycling or playing in trees?
Hear hear.
Abolish these ludicrous laws!! We should be allowed to put iron filing in food if it keeps costs down! Saftey hats for builders? EU Claptrap. Heads are a natural safety helmets.
Whilst we're at it why don't we just put any old rubbish in sausages and sell them as 'Premium'! Oh... we already do that..
Well, perhaps.
Or maybe it is the invisible hand of the market finally taking effect on the labour force.
In the past 20 years UK industry has been 'hollowed out' by the transfer of capacity overseas to low-wage, willing-workforce countries.
Now we have a low-wage willing workforce arriving in the UK.
This means that more companies can viably stay in the UK, while those young adults with a 'can work, won't work' attitude are having their damage to the economy lessoned.
It is economic vibrancy and is the conclusion of the workforce reforms of the past decades.
The next stage is for parents to wake up to the need to give their children a solid start through education and home environment.
This is already happening, as evidenced by the amount of noise saying that it isn't happening.
You are confusing workplace health and safety with consumer food safety. Both are essential elements of a civilised society but are based on different legislaton and are different in their application.
Workplace health and safety is designed to protect workers and members of the public from harm arising from work activities, whether British, Polish or Uraguayan. The onus for being safe is on the employer.
Food safety ensures that the food we eat is safe from harmful contamination or organisms and applies from production (farm, factory) all the way through the food chain to the retailer.
Remove or dilute either and we expose our population to increased risk of serious harm.
Watch out "big brother "will be after you , how dare you speak common sense
well done keep up the good work.
Highlighting isolated examples always makes for lazy health and safety kicking by the media. If they cannot think of anything to write the media answer is to do a health and safety is stupid story. So the assumption we gain from Robert is to get rid of health and safety regulations and send small boys back up chimneys or just get rid of the ones he does not like?
Agree with every word written - a rare thing for me! The world (or the UK/EU)has gone mad with regulation of the wrong sort in the wrong places. Health & safety is an area with particularly crazy regulations, while governments do little about the major externalities which affect lives of private citizens - noise, pollution - or make proper provision of public goods - transport, education, public health, civil security.
There is a deep malaise in modern society underlying all these developments. I suspect it is something to do with selfishness which is probably at an all time high (and getting higher)and decline of individual responsibility but this subject requires a book, not a 100 word comment. Good article. More please identifying the stupidities of modern Britain. You are of course a voice in the wilderness - but these things have to be said.
"It's the parents, stupid" should be the motto for the next serious contender in the general election.
Look at any ingrained problem we currently have. So-called anti-social behaviour, low aspirations, poor social skills (hence the boom of football as the only remaining common ground amongst many men), rises in violent crime, falling educational standards... [yawn]!
Just ask teachers. Any teacher worth their salt can often tell at a parents day which parent belongs to which child, just by the childs behaviour in class.
The well mannered, moral, attentive, happy children often have both the parents arrive in the same car, on time, with good manners and aren't spending the night in the pub.
Unfortunately, it's political suicide to blame parents for anything, let alone all of the above - so (much like pensions) we'll just have to wait for it to become so bad that independent bodies release reports for political parties to hide behind whilst lobbing the odd grenade... oh hang on, a Unicef report anyone?
I agree with this comment as a parent, ex-parent Governor and employer.
We have some deep rooted issues in this country that I feel we are heading towards a sitaution when all our future managers, entrepreneurs and go-getters are foreignors. It is nothing to do with talent but more towards lack of ambition and motivation.
Who you blame is an issue in itself but all I know is we have been avoiding more employees for 2 years now and I know many professional services companies who are doing the same.
Health and safety rules at work have taken over from overt Trade Union militancy - previously some people used their union as an excuse to get paid for not working, now with the trade union reforms they are having to be a bit more clever- when they don't want to do something - like lift up a weight - carry out something new they will refuse - " have you done a health and safety assessment ? no? then I won't do it"
The bosses are paralysed by the blame/ litigation society we work in and until these Health and Safety laws are brought within the realm of common sense and a few awards for damages of 1 penny ( since there is no longer a 1/2 penny ) are made we will be an uncompetitive nation and will see more examples like the MG Longbridge plant being transplanted to China.
What are you going on about health & safety?? This has nothing to do with health & safety - this issue is covered by food safety regulations.
Change the record!!
Have I missed something?- you seem to have jumped on the "health and safety should be blamed for all the world's ills" bandwagon when you are talking a) about Food Safety not H&S and b) give no credit for the advances H&S has made- witness this week's UNICEF report on children where it is only in terms of H&S that England comes out well!
How about some credit?
Health and Safety regulations are not even uniformly applied. Yesterday in our local butcher shop (yes, we still have one), the customer before me asked for some slices of ham "on the bone". She was shown the sealed packs in the display case and told that local health regulations did not permit the butcher to cut and serve his own ham, because its "healthiness" could not be guaranteed. The butcher apparently cannot be relied upon to recognise sub-par meat and refrain from selling it. However, the butcher in the next town (1.5 miles away) can cut and serve ham on the bone. Different council.
Similar topic: banking regulations. When I wanted to add my wife's name to my account, we had to make an appointment and go through a 45-minute interview with searching questions about our jobs, home, etc. "Know your customer" is the name for the FSA's set of rules mandating this ludicrous procedure. When we moved I took an hour off work, went in to the local branch and filled in a change of address form (can't do this on line). My wife didn't sign it -- she was at work -- and since the bank employee accepted the form, I blithely imagined that all was well. Not so. My wife got a letter a few days later saying "we can't change your address because your [non-existent] signature doesn't match our records". Worse still, her letter was addressed to "Mr." Know your customer?
Mr Peston, you have an excellent blog, pertinent and thought provoking. Keep up the good work.
I think you will find that this is a Food Standards issue and not Health & Safety
We see it in the running of the health service. The weight of accountability and protection results in a 'wading through treacle' approach to necessary change and implementation of improvements. It continually impacts throughput of patients and frustrates the staff.
I often wonder whether much of our current obsession with safety of the individual actually results in greater risk to the cohort. It's much akin to the BSE saga where the biggest healthcare burden generated was not a BSE-riddled population but depression and suicide in the farming community.
Like many ideas that start out with great intentions, Health & Safety has become an industry in itself which creates problems to justify its own existance. This then fuels peoples desire to blame others for what in years gone by, they would have been responsible for themselves, and subsequently claim compensation for their own stupidity. Likewise it gives those less honest than most a platform to make bogus claims. In the end, it's is the honest consumers who pay through higher charges, insurance rates and taxes.
Without a doubt Health & Safety regulations are damaging the UK economy. Unfortunately we are regulating even more and instead of protecting consumers we are forcing companies out of business.
For a small business in Britian today the tax and admin burden is becoming a real problem and we are in danger of tipping the balance too far.
Another journalist who can't research the facts, and jumps on the 'lets blame everything on Health and Safety' bandwagon. The Truth is that it is a Food Safety issue that ox intestines are in short supply.
You would think with the levels of illiterate locals this would be the perfect job for them! But no, educated Poles fill the gap! As for the Unicef report, we are the best in the world at collating accurate figures! Consider the fact of French recycling, they have six incinerator plants around Paris burning household refuse and generating electricity, they then label this as recycling!
Here Here.
We're embracing the American way of stupidity, paranoia and hysteria. Can everyone just CALM DOWN.
The story seems to be the same up and down the country. Did the previous generation of the 60's and 70's had it too good? A number seem to be too soft on their children and many of them become spoilt or lack the sense of priority, not to mention discipline. If it is "dirty", "difficult" or "dangerous", they won't do it. The majority of Poles were brought up in poorer environments and many want to work hard to earn a living. The fact they want to come here and work is a good thing.
I am not surprised that this company has to source cow intestines from abroad. Like many in the industry, if you can't find it locally, then it has to come from somewhere. Food miles, yes, but on a different note. It is sustaining jobs in a poorer country.
yet again, we have a journalist harping on about H&S legislation when this subject has got everything to do with food safety legislation.
Tell you what then, lets not bother with producing food in hygenic conditions and have hospital wards overflowing with patients suffering from food poisoning, aswell as factories closing down due to lack of profits due to bad publicity, along with the loss of numerous jobs when the places close.
There seems to be a pattern here. My brother-in-law also runs food factory in Scotland and he has been employing Ukrainians and Russians since the middle nineties. As at McSweens he has found them hard working and willing. But the main reason for employing people from outside the area is that the local population are not flexible and are reluctant to travel even a few miles to work.
They too seem better educated and more socially aware. Most go home after a period but some stay and are highly regarded locally.
The economic and social decline of this country is principally because we are ruled by lawyers who have only one perspective - the legal one. The lawyer has two pre-occupations, the first to maintain his own predominant and affluent position in society. The second is to subordinate all activities to legal rules no matter how absurd, rather than, for example, general wealth creation or social cohesion.
The result is accurately described in Robert Preston's piece and will continue to devastate this country.
I think, you’re absolutely right to question regulations, upbringing, and education. In simple terms, I see Britain as being cluttered, negative, and mean. We’ve become so handicapped with confusing, difficult, and disconnected systems we’re falling down a hole. My personal approach to dealing with it as an individual is to uncover the simplicity and context.
Difficulties in these areas, as with any physical or mental disease, are damage. Rather than invest attention in damage, sidestepping this and investing attention in a better quality vision seems more useful. It can be hard breaking the habit but practice makes perfect. I’m convinced this is the zeitgeist, and hope it gathers more momentum.
The contrast between local British students and Poles and Orientals in a local shop of mine is similar to the experience you report. The British seem less disciplined and keen than the Poles and Orientals. I think, a better sense of rules, attitude, and self-respect may be part of this. A more positive, kinder, and consensual approach may help.
Please try to refer to 'Food Safety Laws' in matters such as this, they are quite distinct in this Country from 'Health and Safety Laws'.
Both sectors however are a minefield for businesses. It keeps me gainfully employed, but is a very frustrating (and expensive) part of the life of any business woman (or man)who not only has to contend with finding a product that sells, making it and marketing it, but also find another insurmountable and unpaid amount of time to comply with continually varying and ever more prescriptive Legislation that limits the consumer from taking some risk in their life.
It is sad but true. Health & Safety is scuppering progress because nobody can accept that risk is a factor of everyday life. If you trip on a pavement, there must be somebody to blame. If you slip on an icy street, there must be somebody to blame. If you get sick, there must be somebody to blame. And of course there is a big claim to be had. We are in the process of bringing up a nation of freeloaders, and the legal profession have to accept a share of the blame, as the claim culture becomes the norm.
Apologies if my wording above has caused any confusion - I've made a small update.
Couldn't agree more, the blog is spot on.
Whether this be a case of Food standards regulations or Health and Safety, things have gotten into such a sad state of affairs and we're being turned into a bunch of wimps!
You can't refill the printer with A4 paper without fear of a paper cut and having to fill out 20 forms afterwards detailing the injury.
Give it 10 years time and we will all be walking around in radiation suits. Public transport, public houses in fact general public interaction with others will be banned due to fears of contagion's.
So bring on your H&S, by the look of most of the replies you've all become robots in our new race anyway. I bet 90% of the negative replies are from those working in H&S?
Welcome to our new world order.
Bring back the days of "It's a knockout" when we were allowed to have fun! Bah
Hoorah for the level headed safety professionals commenting, where's merv the marvelous to prove we have a sense of humour.
Wonder what the ´óÏó´«Ã½ safety advisers think of their journalists, do the safety team at the ´óÏó´«Ã½ tell journalists how to report stories, methinks no. If you're going to take a pop, get the facts right first. Occupational Health and Safety is a world away from the activities of Environmental Health, they chase creepy crawlies round greasy spoons and swat wasps for a living.
I'm not complaining about increased food hygiene. It's just that when I was growing up I ate cake mixture out of the bowl, nuts, beef, raw eggs whisked into unpasteurized milk, and I'm still alive and fully functioning. I have French, Polish, and Greek friends who find the number of health and safety rules covering food in this country laughable. Do we really need to be protected so much from food we would happily eat not so many years ago. Or has the food changed for the worse?
I was glad to see that Robert Peston made a latter clarification to his article. As a number of comments had pointed out, he was talking about food legislation and not health and safety at work law.
The problems in both lie not in the legislation but in the interpretation and application.
Experienced H&S practitioners and Health inspectors can and do develop reasoned and justifiable Risk Assessments which establish good practices, enabling employees to work without harming their health or their safety or, in the case of food, garauntee that the food we eat will not harm us.
Inexperienced, less knowledgeable officials can and do come up with some totally unjustifiable decisions in order to control, minimise or totally eliminate a ridiculously small risk. And then blame it on the legislation.
Thus we arrive at the "conkers-bonkers" stories and the recent closures of schools because of "health and safety"
One similarity between H&S and Food Safety is that both management systems require periodic reviews of rules and practices. Those that are found to be no longer relevant or useful should be modified or eliminated so as to reflect the current situation.
Is the "BSE" ban on british guts still relevant ?
The writer is a Chartered Member of the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health and a Chartered Safety Practitioner.
Haggis is made from mutton, isn’t it? What’s BSE got to do with it?
I agree with much of this. Supermarket food is now so clean and sterile that we lose our natural resistance to bugs, so that when one does crop up, it causes a major outbreak of food poisoning instead of a mild "tummy upset" which in the old days we would have shrugged off.
As for the youth of today, they think that the way to get money is either to win the lottery or become a celebrity. Or steal it. The idea that you might have to work for it does not seem to occur to them.
(By the way, yes, I am originally from Poland, although I've been in the UK a long time.)
I'm a retired Marketing Director with mostly a food & drink background. Labelling & ingredient regulations have been part of my job since I began work in 1962. Regulations that are as important to profitable trading as private property rights. Your Haggis maker should follow what its competitors do and use a different casing. Turning to migrants, the ones who migrate to a new country have 'get up and go'. And unemployment is de-motivating and de-moralising. So we should expect that sort of contrast in motivations. A more vigourous economy is part of the solution.
The majority of the population has so little grasp of mathematics and critical reasoning that it is unable to make valid judgement of risk. How often do you hear about 'lives saved' by a new drug, when what is meant is 'lives prolonged'? Politicians say 'public transport must be safe', when what they mean is 'public transport danger must be balanced against public transport benefit at a cost (both financial and in injuries)that is acceptable to the public'.
Too many years of liberality, self-indulgence and an easy life has made this nation uncompetitive in many fields. Only through massive automation can we compete with low-wage economies, and only the well-educated can design such equipment. We are likely always to have a rump of the 'insufficiently able', and it is likely to grow as technology advances and developing nations become more competent. We need to lead the world in finding a way to get benefit to the whole community from that rump, and to give those people a sense of purpose. Paying them to do nothing is demonstrably not an option, it only breeds generations unable to do anything. Art? Theatre? Archeological digs? Environmental projects? Sport? Smallholdings? Building railways in Africa? All of those and many more, if only I could think what.
Eastern Europeans good, Brits bad.
Of course the EEs here are the enthusaiastic motivated ones. That's why they're here. So not a fair comparison. The Brits might be better with some training and if the wages are good enoguh in comparison with the cost of living in the UK, NOT with living in Eastern Europe.
Which brings us to the elephant in the room - house prices. How on earth are young people in this country ever going to buy a roof over their heads? Motivated EEs come over here, work hard for a couple of years, live in rubbish accommodation, and go home and buy a flat or a house or a business. They send money home to do this. But no Brit can do this. If you're working in food processing then if you are a Brit you will be living in an HMO (home in multiple occupation) belonging to an exploitative landlord, and that's what you can look forward to for the rest of your life.
Meaning the best thing you can do is get pregnant and get housed - or get signed off as disabled.
This is the logical consequence of destroying the incentive to work. The indifference of the next generation is a reaction to this. Home owners crowing over their rising equity and in particular BTL landlords should consider that what benefits them is directly responsible for many of the ills that beset the young.
I can understand why young people feel the way they do about work. Why should they, or anyone else for that matter, feel enthusiastic or motivated to work in awful working conditions for an absolute pittance in a mind numbingly boring and repetitive factory job when all they are really doing is lining the pockets of the factory owners, who in turn treat them with complete and utter contempt. It's no wonder they are "unproductive!".
Interesting blog.. Hopefully as part of your investigations in the Scottish private sector you will have discovered other issues..
Did you note for example that at a conference late last year the Scottish Minister for Enterprise Mr Nicol Stephen lambasted private sector funders saying "private sector funders were hampering the drive to improve the number of successful start-ups by starving companies of the kind of risk capital that could make a vital difference to early-stage ventures." He went on to say "That is very dangerous and short-sighted and ultimately damaging for the economy."
This as much as any Health and Safety or other regulatory burden is doing massive damage to the Scottish economy and holding back its potential.
Railway maintenance is the classic example. They used to be able to work on one track while the other tracks remained open. Now the whole line must close for "safety", and everyone is forced onto much more dangerous buses.
The fault lies entirely at the hands of the media, though it's an entirely natural state of affairs; we (the public) know too much!
We are told how there are paedophiles hiding behind every bush, that Islamic extremists are preparing backpacks full of nails and semtex, that when little jack or jill skins their knees at school, it's always the school's fault. We are told that we should be buying whatever we want on credit, and that if we don't have all the latest bling then we won't have "respect".
Laws in any society are to prepare us for what "could happen", but rarely these days seem to consider the liklihood of it happening. I grew up in the late seventies and early eighties, and there seemed to be far more risks from terrorism due to the Northern Ireland troubles than there has been in recent years. Yet ID cards are constantly on the agenda, every week we are told of yet another Mosque where terror suspects have been in training. Fear of being poisoned isn't just limited to terror attacks as well. It now seems that if you ask for a 'doggy bag' from a restaurant to take home your leftovers, you must sign a disclaimer. Apparently, if you reheat your food improperly and then get food poisoning, it could be construed to be the restaurant's fault instead and not your own!
Until we in Britain develop less of a "me culture" and more of an "us culture" we will always be living like this, facing idiotic laws at every turn.
Luckily Macsween only appear to discriminate against members of the indigenous population when avoiding employing Scots,or it could be seen as racial discrimination.
Incidentally, why is there a need for the workforce to be thrifty?
"I am not suggesting there is anything wrong with Uruguayan innards. But I cannot help but wonder whether some of the countries where Macsween is allowed to buy intestine are only viewed as disease-free because their monitoring systems leave something to be desired."
I'm sure Jo Macsween will thank Mr Peston for that product endorsement! Maybe Mr Peston would like us to return to the good old rat-infested unhygienic food production methods of Victorian Britain. Want lice with your rice? Or maybe eat pies from 'Mc' Sweeney Todd's? I'm a Scot - I love haggis, but I prefer it to be as 'safe' as possible, thanks.
Health and safety legislation does sometimes seem to ignore common sense. Our window cleaners, who have a regular contract with us, have just informed us that they can no longer use ladders to clean our second floor windows due to "health and safety rules". We have had our windows cleaned for 50 years by people using ladders to clean the second floor windows and no-one in that time has fallen off. The equipment they use now does not clean the windows properly. Result - I have sacked the window cleaners and now use a ladder myself.
It is all too easy to exagerate and join the current media-led attack on a realatively new profession ... when did the person commenting on replacing A4 paper last have to fill out ANY paperwork, let alone 20 pages of it?
There is not a single regulation stopping anyone from licking out the bowl after making cakes at home. Raw beef can be served if it wholesome.
Merv hits the nail on the head by telling you that expecting ill-informed, under-trained people to come up with sensible and pragmatic approaches to health and safety is not reliable.
Those of your readers that accept writing out 20 sheets of paperwork to change the A4 paper are just as guilty as anyone trying to introduce the requirement.
Maybe local ox products are now safer than importing. Has the producer made representation and been refused - or has the producer done the normal thing of complain to everyone else without discovering the reasoning?
Human variant CJD (sorry if that is not the correct name) is a terrible disease of the brain associated with bovine products. If that association is still current, I would rather eat haggis out of a plastic bag than risk becoming a victim. If it isn't then let's lift the ban.
Mr Preston: adding a footnote is laudible, but why not edit your blogg and correct the mistake at the start of your article?
The recall of the Cadbury's easter eggs was absolutely necessary. I am a nut allergy sufferer and the condition means that I cannot risk any exposure to nut products (it could be fatal). The protein string that causes the reaction is extremely difficult to remove from surfaces and manufacturing lines that have been used for products containing nuts are a real danger to allergy sufferers.
Having said that, I do believe that many companies attach allergy warnings to their products when the danger is non-existant - they are afraid of being sued. I have seen a nut warning label on sandwich ham in one leading supermarket, which is obviously ridiculous. I was also unable to obtain any real information on the level of risk involved - the supermarket just slap the label on any of their own-brand products to the point that I can't eat anything, 'just in case'.
I do agree that regulations often put a spanner in the works, especially for smaller companies. While the regulations are sometimes in place for good reasons, on occasions, they have little logical thinking behind them and no consideration for producers.
I completely agree with the feeling of the post. The UK has almost indoctrinated every aspect of the lives of its citizens.
e.g.
"Fire door, keep shut" stickers. How much money is wasted on those every year, because you can't trust people to keep doors closed in public areas? Even if such a door was left open, how many lives would it save?
So-called fire doors that close by themselves in my flat. Apparently a NHBC requirement. The builder told me to just put things in front of the doors to keep them open. Much safer!
"Use all available space and move down the carriages" , "Use all available doors" etc. Tube platform staff are useless. They justify their existence by regurgitating the same platitudes train after train and reading out the displays because apparently people can't be trusted to use common sense or read.
"Box is heavy when full" on moving boxes. How many people were required to write that legislation, apply, get it through, make sure it's enforced, communicate it etc.?
"Floor is slippery when wet". Really?
No electrics allowed in a bathroom. Just annoying. In the past, that might have killed 2-3 people so it was outlawed? Have a full electric plug in the shower room in Belgium, never died from that. In Egypt, I've seen plugs actually on the wall in the shower! That's another extreme, but there's certainly an overzealousness in regulating peoples' lives here.
ad infinitum.
All safety regulations were set up to protect. Unfortunately there seems to be a growing gap between interpretation of regulations by authorities and what is a practical and safe approach.eg Fire & Rescue personnel prohibited from working off a step ladder to install smoke detectors in peoples homes, because it apparently contravenes the Working at Height Regulations. What about the same personnel getting people out of high buildings onto a turntable ladder, this presumably is quite in order??
Food safety regulations are designed to protect people from health risks but have become increasingly concerned with controlling risks that are very low when compared with other risks in our daily lives. Politicians are prepared to legislate to control low risks and avoid the criticism that they have permitted, or failed to control, a practice that has a potential to cause harm no matter how low this potential is.
This process is in danger of continuing such that health risks that are theoretical, rather than real, increasingly become the target of future regulation. The regulatory process presently fails to take into account whether there is a health benefit associated with a product that out ways any health risks. The priorities for regulation are not determined by the nature or severity of the risk. If this were the case the legislators would be giving greatest priority to controlling the sale of food rich in sugars and fat. The explosion in obesity amongst our population will have a real impact on the risk of ill health and the cost to our health systems in the future. These real risks are derived from an over consumption of food and a reduction in physical effort. Compare these risks with those that have been subject to enormous sums of money to control, such as the theoretical risk of consuming a food with that might contain very low levels of a chemical used in its production, or contains material that has been genetically manipulated. What evidence is that the increasing regulatory environment is actually improving our health? Surely any process that limits individual choice and freedom should be clearly indicating what the benefits to society are.
Pretty pathetic a documentry on the Scottish private sector draws on such irrelevant and negative sentiment. Why shouldnt well educated and hard working Europeans get these jobs over they who dont want to work. No point in drawing conclusions on our society there. As for regulations, was is so much better under the last government who refused strict regulations as the cows and our children were going mad. Nearly all health regulations are, believe it or not, for our own good. It is not a 'nanny state' but a responsible government. It is just another right wing excuse to attack this faultering government and it is boring. Does anyone fancy eating a pre-1997 beef burger from a caravan now. Maybe the author would. However maybe MacSween should not be so stubborn and revise their recipe and source a local alternative, this would be far better for the environment (and just as tasty I am sure). God forbid we should bring in regulations to save our planet.
My daughter's riding holiday has been cancelled - the equestrian firm which entertained and delighted her last year now has to fork out £80k for 'improvements' under safety rules - which they cannot afford. I'm waiting for a ruling on seatbelts for saddles..
I think we should distinguish between health and safety (and food safety) laws on the one hand, and measures taken by individual employers, councils, schools etc. on the other. In most of the high-profile 'health and safety gone mad' stories, they're not the same thing.
Many day-to-day decisions are based on avoiding being sued. Others are down to going for the line of least resistance -- ban it and you don't have to worry about doing a risk assessment at all. The recent school closures due to snow are a case in point. I'd have thought that kids would be much safer under supervision in the playground at school than they would be off on their own, sledging down steep banks and walking along icy roads filled with out-of-control cars to get there -- which is what they're doing, unsupervised, if school's shut. But the councils taking these decisions aren't looking at the actual risk to the children, but only at the consequence to the council of a child being injured on its premises, so it's 'acceptable' for kids to be at greater risk by themselves than under supervision at school, since outside school they're Somebody Else's Problem.
The civil courts have something to answer for in this. As someone else noted, we need a few judges to throw out these bogus damages claims. We must all learn to take responsibility for our own actions, and to accept that life is risky.
"If out of work for any length of time, she says they are typically unenthusiastic, unreliable and unproductive."
Yeah – the new Unicef shows how much we are screwing up those kids. They grew up in the post-industrial era, but they are not adapted to them to a "low work" environment. We have the engine on full revs, but we are going nowhere. Who but an outright fool would retain enthusiasm and reliability after languishing on welfare for years?
It is unfortunate to see both the author and an employer harshly criticise young UK workers without thinking about the reasons for the superiority of workers from the EU accession states. The newly arrived workers are often over-qualified for the menial jobs they do here (i.e. degree qualified and bright) whilst the native workers are often the dregs of our education system which has failed to suitably provide skills for them to contribute.
It is also worth noting that the newly arrived workers have a huge economic advantage in that they are here on a short term basis, and can tolerate living conditions which would be considered unfit in this country (and certainly so for a family). If UK citizens had the option of working in a country where they could earn 4 times UK earnings and save enough money in a few short years to buy a decent family home in their home nation I dare say they would be highly motivated also.
Instead they are subjected to abuse my employers and the media, whilst being encouraged to lower their standard of living to compete with immigrant labour. The only winners are the shareholders and executives of large businesses, who have grown disproportionately wealthy under our alleged "labour" government.
I work with a German girl who has lived in France and Portugal as well as Germany. She cannot believe how seriously the UK takes H&S, to the point where virtually everything seems to be dangerous and the Nanny State seems intent on protecting everyone from themselves. Part of the problem is that the UK seems to enforce every mad-capped, hair-brained scheme from Europe whereas our continental cousins merely pretend to and merrily get on with life while we're stick in more and more red tape. Even ROSPA is on record as saying we've made play grounds for children too safe, with the result that they now don't want to play on them (too boring!) so play on genuinely dangerous things (factory roofs etc) and also don't know how to cope when they hurt themselves. H&S explains so much about what's wrong with the UK - can you imagine creating an Empire the size we had if we'd had to comply with the amound of H&S red tape we do now? Our ancestors will no doubt be turning in their graves when they see what a namby-pamby bunch we've turned out to be.
Great blog. I had the privilege of going to a commercial exhibition in India for the first time some months ago and was struck by the intense competitiveness of their students as they strove to get as much information as possible to enable them to get ahead of the rest. We may not like it, but there are huge numbers of people outside the UK who covet our standard of living and are prepared to work extremely hard for it. They will also tolerate less safety (of any variety - food or 'health &'!) to get it.
We must all wake up to this reality if we are to continue to compete and to be able to maintain and have some say over sharing the benefits of our way of life with the rest of the world.
What is even worse, is that regulations prohibit the export of not only Haggis, but of black puddings as well.
Brussels and Whitehall have got their European knickers in such a twist that these products are regarded as unsafe and fit only to be eaten within the geographical boundaries of the UK.
Coming from a person whose job rarely has any risk attached to it, other than being thumped by an irate politician, I call it a bit rich.
Food regulations mean we are not going to be killed by a farmer filling his cattle with the detritus of a mad abattoir, as has happened in the recent past. While industrial health and safety mean some of can work in uncaring harmful industries whose owners have to adhere to regulations or face court. As has also happened in the past, and will doubtless continue to happen. Health and safety regulations prohibit employers from allowing their employees to work with asbestos, for instance, without strict regulations being observed. In spite of them, tens of thousands of employees will die this year alone from asbestosis.
1. I agree the food has become worse and worse since few years, although all regulations had been made. The question is was it regulations that have made our food tasteless and unhealthy or the food was tasteless and unhealthy and that's the reason for regulation that was made?
2. Eastern Europeans work harder than most of Brits, you can relay on them more than on most of Brits, they are more flexible and willing to cooperate and do overtime. The are 2 reasons for it:
First - we are paid here much more than in our countries (but this is changing now), and Second is we are treated at work here in mature way. With much more respect. And that is why we like to be in here. UK is still the country of great numbers of possibilities for us, and with so called 'normal life' that we don't have back at home. I am sorry for all those Brits who thinks we are taking over. No worries, we are not. Sooner or later we all (or most of us) move back to our homes. The global economy made us to move, but we miss our homes. Very much.
3. Yes, I am from there.
As a Health and Safety professional I can tell you that the volume of Legislation has reduced in the last 25 years, not increased.
I echo your correspondents who make the point that the perception that "H&S has gone mad" is due to a lack of understanding of the Legislation.
I work in the construction industry, where 150-200 workers are killed in the UK every year by accidents, but where properly administered Health and Safety culture saves many more lives and limbs.
Astonishing!
At message 55 Mike Bell complains that he cannot expose his daughter to potential danger.
Mr Bell, any equestrian firm that is being forced to spend £80k SHOULD spend £80k. Improvements (I don't understand why you place the word in inverted commas) must have been needed, which means that whilst they were delighting your daughter last year, perhaps she was exposed to harm?
If anyone's daughter or son were injured or worse, and then it was discovered that the firm had spent that money on the shareholders instead would raise shock in any right-minded person.
Some years ago several school children died in Lyme Bay because the adventure company owner didn't see the need for trained staff, and because the staff he employed did not understand that a child in the open sea was an emergency - she told them not to inflate their life jackets because the lifejackets were for emergency use only.
For pitty's sake people, please do not let your enjoyment of poking fun at things lead to a single incident of death from apathy or penny-pinching. You should be looking to lift our social expectations, not deride them.
I'm still in shock that Macsween's haggis casing is still the traditional ox intestine. My partner and I convinced friends at a Burn's dinner last month that food regulations would never allow intestines to touch a modern-day haggis, just so they'd try the stuff! Naturally, I enjoyed the vegetarian haggis as a precaution. Let's just keep this article a secret, shall we?!