Flammable gas incidents resulting in death and injury are reported to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) under Regulation 11(1) of the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 2013 (RIDDOR). RIDDOR Reports notify HSE of deaths and major injuries arising in connection with flammable gas, which are recorded as fatalities and non-fatalities and the breakdown is published at ridgas.xlsx.

The breakdown for region and the root cause of each incident is not held.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is the enforcing authority for gas businesses and engineers (including self- employed gas engineers) who work in private properties. Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998 (GSIUR) requires engineers undertaking gas work to be competent, registered with Gas Safe Register (GSR), to work in accordance with the appropriate standards and in a way that does not put people in danger.

HSE regulate this in private properties through enforcement powers set under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974. Enforcement powers available to regulators include prosecution, prohibition notices and improvement notices.

GSR also has a dedicated team to investigate allegations of gas work by unregistered engineers and businesses (illegal gas fitters) and provides HSE with evidence of these activities. In addition to this, GSR publishes a range of gas safety information and guidance on its website and regularly runs media campaigns to promote key gas safety messages to the public.

The purpose of collecting race and ethnicity data is because it they are protected characteristics under the Equality Act 2010.

All public bodies have a requirement under the Public Sector Equality Duty to pay due regard to the impacts of policies to those who share protected characteristics set out in the Equality Act.

To do so requires that meaningful data be collected in a harmonised form, as set out by the Cabinet Office. Claimant declarations of their protected characteristics are optional, and not mandatory.

Data collected on protected characteristics is solely used for analytical and statistical purposes in aggregate form and has no part in decisions relating to benefit claims.

The Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998 (GSIUR) forms the basis of the Health and Safety Executive’s approach to ensuring the safety of gas appliances and systems within England (a) and Romford (b). This includes taking enforcement action against those who do not comply with their legal obligations, including unsafe gas work or carrying out gas work whilst unregistered.

GSIUR also allows for the establishment of the Gas Safe Register (GSR). GSR aims to protect the public from unsafe gas work through:

• A national investigations team tracking down un-registered gas workers;

• Regular inspections of registered engineers, to ensure they are applying gas competence and complying with GSIUR;

• Investigating reports of unsafe gas work; and

• Educating consumers and raising awareness of gas safety.

GSR will apply appropriate sanctions on those businesses found carrying out unsafe gas work as per their Sanctions Policy.

The Government recognises the devasting impact on those who have asbestos related disease and their families.

In total, there were over 4000 deaths due to asbestos-related diseases in England in 2023, the latest year for which statistics are available, due to past exposures to asbestos. This total includes 1975 mesothelioma deaths, and a similar estimated number due to asbestos-related lung cancer. There were in addition 401 deaths where the death certificate mentioned the non-malignant asbestos-related disease of asbestosis.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is actively tackling Great Britain’s asbestos legacy using a variety of regulatory interventions including licencing of removal contractors and inspection of the management of asbestos in situ, stakeholder engagement, public campaigns (including, ‘Asbestos & You’ for trades people to know what to watch for and what to do when they come across asbestos) as well as research activities.

Collectively, this supports dutyholders and other stakeholders to manage asbestos safely to avoid further exposure to risk and work towards an asbestos-free built environment. HSE is giving further consideration to the recommendations in the 2022 Work and Pensions Select Committee report, “The Health and Safety Executive’s Approach to asbestos management”.

The latest available statistics on the number of people who are on Universal Credit, by Westminster parliamentary constituency and by local authority, are published in the ‘People on Universal Credit’ dataset on Stat-Xplore.

Users can log in or access Stat-Xplore as a guest and, if needed, can access general guidance on how to extract the information required. For guidance on the Universal Credit datasets on Stat-Xplore, see the Universal Credit Official Statistics Stat-Xplore User Guide.

I refer the honourable member to the answer I gave on 6 February 2025 to question UIN 28443.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE), the workplace regulator for Great Britain, works closely with the construction industry to influence and promote safe working practices to prevent accidents and reduce worker ill health.

This year HSE is continuing its range of interventions and enforcement to reduce fatal injuries in the construction industry, which includes HSE inspectors investigating construction site incidents and inspecting construction site activity, taking enforcement where non-compliance with health and safety legislation is identified. HSE inspectors will continue to highlight poor practice, explain what good compliance looks like and seek to influence better management of health and safety risk on construction sites.

HSE will continue to work with industry, trade associations, professional bodies, trade unions and others who promote health and safety standards, such as the Construction Leadership Council (CLC) and Construction Industry Advisory Committee (CIAC). This collaboration brings improvements in the construction industry through sharing lessons learnt from incident investigations and promoting good practice in providing sector-specific information and guidance.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is the workplace regulator for Great Britain and their mission, set out in a 10-year strategy, is to protect people and places, which includes reducing work related injury.

HSE undertakes a range of activities to reduce work related injury, which includes conducting health and safety inspections of various businesses across a range of sectors; investigating health and safety concerns; investigating work related incidents; and taking enforcement action where non-compliance with health and safety legislation is found to improve standards.

HSE cannot specify what steps are taken to reduce work-related injuries in the Romford constituency as the same principals of inspection and investigation described apply across the country, not just in specific regions.