Graveyards (Health and Safety)

I have not had the opportunity to topple-test outside my constituency, although perhaps that interest could be pursued. This is a scandal across the country, not simply in Bassetlaw. I would estimate that between 500,000 and 1 million headstones in Britain have been wrongly staked by over-zealous burial authorities. They usually contract out to people such as IMI, who are staking not by the dozen, but by the hundred or the thousand. It is technically wrong, but they are making good money and doubtless charging by the headstone stake, as well as for the materials and time. The local authority is then telling my constituents that they have to fix the headstone that is not unsafe in the first place at their expense because they are the owners. The decent people of Bassetlaw—for example, the widows in their 90s who have been to see me—feel obliged to pay because that is what they do. They are respecting their late husband or their family plot. I know of cases where people have paid over £1,000 for headstones that were not unsafe. This is a major national scandal and I hope that the Minister will consider two things. First, does he agree, as officials have, that the staking of headstones should not be allowed because it creates a greater hazard than leaving them untouched? If this were not happening in graveyards, it would be like a comedy show. This should not be permitted, as it is against good risk assessment in health and safety. Also—I am assured this will be happening before the summer—guidelines on proper risk assessment must be issued to burial authorities, because there are risks that private contractors are not assessing, such as those involving iron railings. Near my constituency, in the past two years two youths have impaled themselves on iron railings, one fatally. The risks associated with poor car parking also need to be addressed, and the state of the pavements in graveyards needs to be risk assessed, too. Irony or ironies, in the Worksop cemetery slates on the roof of the building are liable to fall off. That is a far greater and more obvious risk that needs to be assessed and addressed than the perfectly safe headstones. I found caskets 3 or 4 in high with yellow stickers on them saying they are unsafe. I have also found headstones 6 or 12 in high that are deemed to be a risk to the community. That is entirely outwith the terms of the guidance that is repeatedly given by Ministers and the HSE, which states categorically—I ask the Minister to confirm this—that there should be not over-zealous health and safety, but a rational assessment of risks. If a burial authority is inspecting, it also ought to tell the individual concerned so that they are able to be present if they wish—Bassetlaw has, of course, failed to do that. That would mean that we would not have to go through the ridiculous number of court cases that arise, such as those I am bringing now and will have to bring in future, in which people have not been able to witness the risk assessment taking place, or the headstone has been wrongly staked, or they have, mistakenly instructed by the council, paid out of their own money to fix things. In my book, the council is liable in such cases for repairing the damage and sorting out the issue on their behalf. The guidance issued by the HSE and Government Departments states precisely that there should be balance in health and safety. The guidance says, ““Take reasonable efforts, but, as with every other aspect of public safety, don't go overboard, because we want to ensure that there is a rational assessment of risk.”” The National Association of Memorial Masons training achieves that. I have done the training. It gives a rational assessment of risk and an understanding of weaknesses in structures—of what is likely to fall and what is not, of what is safe and what is not safe. I therefore propose that the best thing councils such as Bassetlaw can do is bring this matter entirely in-house and train the council gravediggers, who are more at risk than anybody in terms of health and safety and whose families are likely to be buried in the same graveyards. They will make a rational assessment of risk, and people in my constituency and others will then be able to go about mourning and paying their respects in the proper way. Let us get these stakes removed, and let us do so this year. That would be good news for the whole country.