Police must put public safety first and end health and safety 'nonsense', say Tories

Shadow Home Secretary David Davis said the law would be revised to end the "nonsense" of health and safety rules which lead to "overly-cautious" or "defensive" policing.

Officers responding to an emergency would be made to "prioritise the risk to public safety above the risk to individual officers".

Mr Davis said it is time to restore the "heroism" which traditionally defined the police, but had been undermined by Labour red tape.

His announcement follows a string of cases which have caused public outrage.

They include that of ten-year-old Jordon Lyon, who drowned in a park pond near Wigan while saving the life of his younger sister.

Two community support officers arrived at the scene but rather than intervene they radioed for assistance – on health and safety grounds – because they did not have the requisite training in water rescue.

Mr Davis said there had been too many examples of excessively wide interpretations of health and safety requirements, with over-cautious policing putting the public at greater risk.

In a speech today in Crewe, where he is campaigning in the Crewe and Nantwich by-election, Mr Davis will say: "Too often right-minded officers are weighed down by the suffocating swelter of form-filling, box-ticking and bureaucracy.

"Red tape and regulation are holding the police back.

"This has fed a health and safety culture that makes the police less healthy, and the public less safe.

"In some areas, officers can't throw out a lifebelt in an emergency without first conducting an assessment of the risk to themselves.

"In Wigan, brave Jordon Lyon drowned trying to rescue his younger sister. Officers on the scene were held back from helping by rules and regulation, defined by a spurious idea of health and safety.

"And just last week, we hear that police won't break up illegal raves until the next day – again, because of health and safety considerations.

"This nonsense has got to stop.

"A Conservative government will change the law to ensure that, when officers respond to an emergency, they put public protection above all other considerations."

The Tories published a dossier of cases to back the policy, which will require changes to the Health And Safety At Work Act 1974.

In June 2003, a High Court judge criticised the Health and Safety Executive for prosecuting the Metropolitan Police Commissioner for the death of an officer and injuries to another, after they pursued criminals across roofs in two separate incidents.

Mr Justice Crane said the prosecution should not have been brought in the first place because it showed a "fundamental lack of understanding of the unique nature of policing".

In June 2004, the police delayed deploying to an emergency call in Highmoor Cross near Henley, Oxfordshire, where a man had shot dead his estranged wife and her sister and seriously injured their mother.

Neighbours rushed to give first aid.

But armed officers and paramedics delayed for more than an hour on health and safety grounds, despite it being reasonably clear after 22 minutes that the man – Stuart Horgan – had left the scene.

Thames Valley police reviewed the incident, and concluded that the sister, Emma Walton, might not have died if the police and ambulance services had arrived sooner.

The review criticised the police for focusing on trying "to eliminate risk rather than manage it" and taking an "overly cautious approach" on health and safety grounds.

Most recently, police in Kent cited health and safety grounds for failing to break up an illegal rave.

Chief Inspector Gill Ellis said: "We wait until daylight hours for reasons of health and safety before making interventions", in order to minimise the risks to officers and revellers operating in the dark, and to avoid those under the influence of alcohol or drugs from driving home until the next day.

In his speech Mr Davis, who is also due to meet Cheshire's chief constable, will add: "Labour has undermined the heroism that has traditionally defined the police. A Conservative government will restore it."