Thank you. I am very honoured to be here.
I hope you all recall the TV programme, ‘Yes Minister’? I think the Gas Safe Register is ‘brave’ to ask the charity CO-Gas Safety, to speak at this event.

The GSR has been open and straightforward in its dealings with us. The conflict that CORGI endured has been largely removed, which was needed. The GSR is clearer in its main purpose, which is to register gas installers!

We hope that Gas installers approve of the new scheme and if they don’t, that they will tell the register, or us, so we can pass on their complaints anonymously.  We have already passed on some comments and GSR has dealt with them quickly and efficiently, to the satisfaction of the installers.

We look forward to higher standards of registered installers – sorely needed I fear as the recent WHICH report showed – only two in nine registered installers did a good job.
We hope the GSR will soon have better enforcement powers to stop poor workmanship from registered installers and also stop illegal work.

So we have seen some improvements and we are thankful for any changes that may save lives and preserve health. However, the much vaunted and promised trust, though registered, isn’t up & running yet so there is a continuing lack of awareness. There is also a lack of detailed and checked official data on the number of CO deaths and injuries and little help for victims, yet it is from listening to victims that you find where the problems are.

Our Government has failed to implement two key HSC recommendations made in 2000.

1. A levy on the gas suppliers to pay for warnings about the dangers of CO and for research and
2. That the gas emergency service carries and uses equipment to test appliances for CO.

That was almost a decade ago and we still don’t know how hard the HSE pressed for these to be implemented. Please note that these recommendations had the support of the majority of stakeholders.
Surely the gas emergency service having no equipment to test appliances is like a fireman unable to feel heat or smell smoke!

The fact remains, after 15 years of lobbying, there is still no free, affordable or even available test of appliances for CO. Can any of you imagine what it’s like telling a desperately worried mother of several young children, who is convinced they have been or are continuing to be poisoned, that there is virtually no TEST of her home for CO?

In 1995 there was only one charity, CO-Gas Safety. Now there are five. We have yet to see if this new charity will actually improve the situation. How many of the trustees WILL BE victims or represent victims? In 1996 we were pressing for a levy of £1 per household – that would have provided £22 million every year to raise awareness. The climate change levy was £15 per household! What we are getting is £1.7 million, which is less than 10% of what was needed in 1996 - but please remember, firstly the trustees obviously can’t and won’t spend it all at once, secondly, who will actually foot this bill in the end? The gas installers? The least wealthy members of the fuel industry?
How we long for a trust with ample funds ideally from the wealthy fuel suppliers, (who will no doubt pass this cost on to consumers). This trust could raise awareness, which we have tried to do on a shoestring.  A well funded trust, with a majority of trustees being victims, will hopefully mean CO-Gas Safety is no longer needed.

We also ask HSE to amend the landlord’s gas safety certificate to include a combustion test and insist that all emergency service personnel are at least equipped with personal CO alarms, as Scotia Gas has already done voluntarily.
Please remove these obstacles and help GSR meet its task to improve safety and reduce CO poisoning.

Lastly, the UK is often held out as far better than most EU countries with regard to gas safety. That may be true but if so, doesn’t this call for an EU directive on the safety of appliances powered by combustible fuel? We have a draft directive which we delivered to the EU in 1996. I’ve been asked to attend a Federation of Tour Operators meeting, just after this meeting, about pressing for a directive. Perhaps, with the help of industry the UK really could hold itself out as a LEADER in gas safety. The fuel industry might be surprised to find it made a PROFIT in Europe and indeed the world, out of saving lives.                                   

© Copyright CO-Gas Safety 2010