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By Steve Boggan and Chris Pollard - Mail Online
Published: 22:04, 20 October 2024 | Updated: 03:30, 21 October 2024
Hundreds of thousands of people will die from exposure to asbestos in Britain’s schools, a bombshell report claims.
Pupils and teachers face a ‘tsunami’ of deaths after being exposed to the ‘hidden killer’ every day, the authors warn.
The Mail today launches a campaign to strip the toxic material from all public buildings – starting with hospitals and more than 21,000 schools where it is present.
Since 1980, at least 1,400 teachers and support staff and 12,600 pupils have died from mesothelioma – an aggressive cancer caused by inhaling asbestos fibres.
But this number is predicted to grow dramatically across the next 20 to 60 years as Britain’s crumbling schools expose more children and educators to increasing danger.
The Mail is also calling on ministers to create a national online database of every non-domestic building that contains asbestos. Once this is launched, it must be used to start a programme to strip the material from buildings.
The Joint Union Asbestos Committee (JUAC) report, produced after an investigation by eight unions representing heads, teachers and support staff, states: ‘Hundreds of thousands of students and staff, exposed to asbestos in their schools since the mid-1990s, are predicted to die from mesothelioma.’
It adds: ‘Crucially, the evidence in this report suggests that [asbestos] is likely to be a tsunami in the UK. Their deaths would be the consequence of ineffective asbestos regulations and a cost-cutting culture that wrongly implies “asbestos is safe so long as it is not disturbed”.’
The policy of successive governments has been to leave asbestos where it is unless it is visibly damaged and shedding fibres. But the Mail’s Asbestos: Britain’s Hidden Killer campaign aims to end that.
Lawyer Harminder Bains, whose father died of mesothelioma, has been representing asbestos victims for 30 years. She has now been instructed by the National Education Union to bring a legal case against the Government to force it to make schools safe.
Last night Ms Bains, of Leigh Day solicitors, said the policy of leaving the killer material in place was ‘outrageous’.
She added: ‘You don’t have to see visible dust for it to be dangerous, and inhaling any amount is potentially deadly.
‘Schools are not fit for purpose. As one teacher said to me, we wouldn’t send our children into burning buildings, so why are we sending them into buildings riddled with asbestos?’
Liz Darlison, CEO of the charity Mesothelioma UK, said the issue is a ‘national disgrace’.
She added: ‘The ongoing presence of asbestos in our deteriorating school buildings is like a bomb that is slowly exploding.
‘It’s an unbelievable tragedy and a national disgrace that we are not doing more to protect people, especially children.’
Asbestos-related disease is the biggest cause of industrial deaths in the UK, amounting to more than 5,000 a year.
Most asbestos-linked deaths are caused by mesothelioma, a cancer affecting the mesothelium membrane surrounding the lungs, heart and intestines. In the vast majority of cases, the lungs are worst affected.
It can take 20 to 60 years between being exposed to asbestos and developing symptoms, such as abdominal and chest pains, coughing and breathlessness.
Once a diagnosis is made, most victims die within 18 months. There is no cure, and treatments such as chemotherapy and immunotherapy can only slow down the growth of the cancer.
PE teacher Julia Browne died from mesothelioma in 2022 after being exposed to asbestos at St Teresa’s Secondary Girls’ School in Sunbury-on-Thames, Surrey.
Yesterday her widower Peter, 77, criticised ministers’ lack of action, saying: ‘The Government says it has a plan for school buildings, but unless that includes the immediate removal of asbestos, what’s the point?
‘Thousands are dying each year, but cases are not often publicised, so it’s very much an underestimated situation.’
The JUAC report, called What Is The Real Risk From Asbestos In Schools? drew on official government figures to arrive at the numbers likely to die.
Lead investigator Dr Gill Reed said: ‘These findings are very worrying because there is this mantra [that] asbestos in schools is safe as long as it’s not disturbed. But no one knows if it’s been disturbed because you can’t always see it, and school checks are simply not adequate or not being carried out effectively.’
Lib Dem MP Munira Wilson, who has previously pressured the Government to reveal the scale of the asbestos problem, said: ‘This study is shocking and goes to emphasise the devastating impact of years of neglect on our schools. Every parent should know that when they send their child to school, they will be taught in a safe environment.’
Charles Pickles, of campaign group Airtight On Asbestos, said managing asbestos in schools safely was impossible because boisterous pupils were bound to disturb the fragile material.
Echoing the Mail’s calls for a national register, he said: ‘We must begin facing up to the problem by introducing a register, which will enable us to plan for asbestos’s removal.’
There is no official figure for the number of schools containing asbestos. But Freedom of Information requests to the Department for Education have found there are at least 21,500.
There are more than 32,000 schools in the UK, and any built before 1999 – when the use of asbestos was finally banned – are likely to contain it.
A spokesman for the Health and Safety Executive said it did not recognise the figures quoted by the JUAC.
It added: ‘Our inspection campaign showed that the majority of schools are managing asbestos safely. We are continuing to carry out inspections on asbestos compliance in schools and elsewhere.’
A Department for Education spokesman said: ‘We take the safety of children and those who work with them incredibly seriously.’ It added that it expected all authorities to have ‘robust plans’ to manage the material.