Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to the Sixth Report of the Work and Pensions Committee of Session 2021–22 on The Health and Safety Executive’s approach to asbestos management, HC 560, published on 21 April 2022, what steps his Department is taking to implement the Committee's recommendations.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is continuing its long-term work to deliver regulatory interventions, new communication campaigns and asbestos-related research in support of wider Government priorities. This work is aligned with those recommendations in the 2022 Work and Pensions Select Committee (WPC) report on HSE’s approach to asbestos management, which were accepted in the previous government’s response.

Three WPC recommendations related to specific requirements of Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012 and HSE is considering how best to address the findings of a public consultation which closed in January 2026. The consultation sought stakeholder’s views on regulatory and non-regulatory proposals to ensure the independence and impartiality of roles in the four-stage clearance process, improving the standard of asbestos surveys, and clarifying the type of work that constitutes Notifiable Non-Licensed Work with asbestos.