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Rogue gas fitters facing jail as safety law passes hurdle
ROGUE gas fitters who put people at risk of carbon monoxide poisoning will face jail instead of a fine, in a major victory for The Northern Echo's Silent Killer campaign.
A backbench Bill to dramatically increase punishments for negligent work - including on gas appliances - has won Government support.
The backing means the Health and Safety (Offences) Bill, which cleared its first Commons hurdle on Friday, is now odds-on to become law.
Keith Hill, the Labour MP for Streatham, in south London, has also courted the opposition parties, to ensure his Bill reaches the statute book quickly.
It is prompted by scandals such as a badly-trained gas fitters escaping with fines as low as £4,000 when their actions have claimed lives. Earlier this month, it was revealed that up to 20,000 rogue fitters - either untrained or deregistered for negligence - are servicing gas fires and boilers in British homes.
A Commons debate heard that 1.5 million gas appliances were being installed every year by workers not registered by the Council for Registered Gas Installers (Corgi).
CO poisoning claims up to 20 lives each year and injures a further 200 people. Those victims suffer kidney failure, blindness, brain damage, memory loss, personality changes and incontinence.
The Northern Echo launched its Silent Killer campaign following the death of Anne Brennan, a 19-year-old student from Houghton-le-Spring, Wearside, in Durham City accommodation in 1995. An inquest ruled she was unlawfully killed and her landlord was fined £10,000 for failing to ensure the boiler in the property was properly maintained.
Mr Hill told MPs: "There is a history, going back to the mid-Nineties, of judges expressing discontent at being unable to impose jail sentences for health and safety offences.
"I believe the courts are right to call for the availability of the penalty of imprisonment."
In reply, Anne McGuire, a work and pensions minister, revealed her department would throw its weight behind the legislation, to stamp out "derisory" penalties.
Sent: 04/02/2008
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