Labour's Asbestos Strategy: Progress or Procrastination?

The Labour Party Conference 2025 hosted an important roundtable discussion on Monday 29 September that brought together key stakeholders to address what remains one of Britain's most pressing occupational health crises.

Despite asbestos being banned over two decades ago, the UK continues to hold the unwelcome distinction of having the world's highest mesothelioma death rates, with the material present in an estimated 300,000 non-domestic buildings – though some experts suggest this figure vastly understates the true scale of the problem.

The session, chaired by Peter McGettrick of the British Safety Council, featured contributions from Minister Sir Stephen Timms (Minister of State for Social Security and Disability, responsible for HSE), John Richards of Asbestos Information CIC, Liz Darlison of Mesothelioma UK, and Sarah Kilpatrick of the National Education Union. What emerged was a stark contrast between the government's cautious, incremental approach and the industry's urgent calls for comprehensive action.

The Government's Position

Sir Stephen Timms outlined several developments since the 2022 Work and Pensions Select Committee report, which he had chaired. The centrepiece of his announcement was a proposed asbestos census of the public estate, beginning with schools and hospitals. This census, to be conducted over the coming year, aims to establish baseline data about asbestos presence in public buildings.

However, the Minister's revelation that the Ministry of Defence could not answer a parliamentary question about how many of their buildings contain asbestos raised eyebrows. This admission, a quarter-century after the duty to manage asbestos came into force, underscored the fundamental failure of current approaches.

Timms also detailed HSE's plans for regulatory reform of the Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012, with consultation expected later this year or early 2026. Proposed changes include clarifying notifiable non-licensed work requirements, improving asbestos survey quality standards with potential individual surveyor accreditation, and ensuring independence in the four-stage clearance process by requiring duty holders rather than contractors to commission clearance work.

The Minister highlighted HSE's increased awareness campaigns and promised a comprehensive research plan by year's end, focusing on epidemiological studies, identifying high-risk areas, and understanding stakeholder behaviours to inform future interventions.

The Industry's Challenge

John Richards presented Asbestos Information CIC's vision: a data-led national strategy using existing asbestos management data. His organisation has analysed seven million lines of data from over 300,000 buildings, demonstrating that large-scale data analysis can identify asbestos hotspots and inform targeted interventions.

Richards drew a pointed comparison with the Energy Performance Certificate database, established for £2.4 million with ongoing costs of approximately £1 per certificate – figures that align precisely with Asbestos Information CIC's proposals. Yet HSE has repeatedly rejected their database concept on cost grounds, with essential cost-benefit analysis remaining undisclosed.

"Is it possible to understand how we manage asbestos in the future when we have no idea of the extent of the problem?" Richards asked. His frustration was palpable: decades of decision-making without robust data has led to the current crisis, and he argued forcefully against perpetuating this approach for another fifty years.

Questions from the Floor

The audience response was passionate and pointed. Jonathan Grant, FAAM registrar, dismissed the census as "essentially a cop-out from doing a National Register," predicting that disparate data formats across organisations would render the exercise futile. He questioned what a census could reveal that wasn't already known, particularly when Asbestos Information CIC has a "cost effective solution" ready to implement.

Ian Gulliford expressed shock that after 25 years of duty to manage regulations, the government couldn't answer basic questions about asbestos locations in its own estate. He asked whether Asbestos Information CIC would be approached to contribute their data – Richards confirmed they had not been approached but would willingly offer it.

Ben Angell James, an asbestos consultant, voiced concern about governmental commitment, noting the absence of parliamentary representation when Asbestos Information CIC first released their report. He challenged the Minister about HSE's refusal to share cost profiling information for the proposed database, information that remains classified despite its obvious relevance to policy decisions.

Perhaps most contentiously, an exchange occurred between an asbestos contractor and the NEU's Sarah Kilpatrick about responsibility for asbestos management failures in schools. Whilst the contractor highlighted shocking examples – including a school project in Whitley Bay where costs escalated from £1 million to £26 million, and schools operating with 19-year-old surveys – Kilpatrick firmly placed responsibility with successive governments' systematic underfunding and deregulation rather than with education workers or unions.

The Path Forward

As the session concluded, Mike Mavrommatis of Respublica, stated he had secured a commitment from Minister Timms to properly consider Asbestos Information CIC's methodology to ensure the evidence base developed by Richards and colleagues receives appropriate consideration.

Yet scepticism remained. Richards revealed that a recent two-hour meeting with three HSE representatives yielded no answers and no information sharing, with officials citing cost concerns about the national database whilst refusing to provide supporting evidence.

The fundamental tension is clear: whilst government proceeds cautiously with consultation and census-taking, over 5,000 people continue to die annually from asbestos-related diseases. The question hanging over the conference room was whether Labour's incremental approach represents genuine progress or merely another chapter in Britain's long history of asbestos policy failure.