ELECTION BRIEFING by JUAC and AISon ASBESTOS CAMPAIGN
This provides a briefing by JUAC/AiS for all MPs and prospective MPs which highlights our campaign for the safe management of asbestos in schools. Significant numbers of teachers are dying from mesothelioma with over 140 school teachers dying in the past ten years. School cleaners, administration staff and caretakers have also died of mesothelioma. However the statistics are generic so it is unknown how many specifically worked in schools, although HSE acknowledge that school caretakers are particularly at risk.

Similarly, because of the long latency, there are no statistics that definitively show how many people have died because of their asbestos exposure as a child at school. However based on expert evidence given to the Education Select Committee it is reasonable to estimate that between 200 and 300 people will die each year because of their asbestos exposure as a child at school during the 1960s and 1970s.

Why asbestos is a problem in schools

More than 75% of UK schools contain asbestos. The asbestos has been in situ in some schools since as long ago as the mid-1940s and much of the remaining asbestos is thought to be amosite – brown asbestos. All types of asbestos are known to cause mesothelioma; an invariably fatal cancer.

There has never been an audit of the asbestos and there is no national strategic plan for the ongoing management of the asbestos in situ or a plan for phased and prioritised removal. Meanwhile, the condition of asbestos in schools is deteriorating as it gets older and, in some cases, as it is poorly managed

Please send copies to your MP via this link https://www.writetothem.com/ Or ring the House of Commons Information desk on 020 7219 4272, or visit www.theyworkforyou.com or www.parliament.uk or http://www.publicwhip.org.uk/