Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the explicit monetary value per quality-adjusted life was in the context of Workplace accidents and regulation, as quoted as part of the Health and Safety Executive's submission to Inter-departmental Group for the Valuation of Life and Health review in 2008.

In response to a review of departmental valuation practices conducted for the Interdepartmental Group for the Valuation of Life and Health in 2008, HSE submitted a summary of a Regulatory Impact Assessment (RIA) of the Control of Noise at Work Regulations 2005. In this appraisal, HSE applied a value of £42,000 per quality adjusted life year (2005 prices), derived from the Department for Transport's Value of a Prevented Fatality (VPF) (£1.4 million in 2005), to assess the health benefits of reduced noise exposure at work. This value was derived specifically for the appraisal of the Noise at Work regulations. The full RIA is published on the HSE website (http://www.hse.gov.uk/noise/noise.pdf).

HSE routinely applies the VPF, with adjustment, in an annual report of the costs of work-related injuries and ill health. The most recent report, Costs to Britain of workplace fatalities and self-reported injuries and ill health, 2010/11, is published on the HSE website (http://www.hse.gov.uk/statistics/pdf/cost-to-britain.pdf). An accompanying methodology report describing HSE's current approach to valuing the impacts of work-related injuries and ill health is also available on the HSE website http://www.hse.gov.uk/research/rrhtm/rr897.htm.