Asbestos in schools: we urgently need a properly funded removal programme to reduce the risk to pupils and staff

As a campaigning union we of course seek to improve the pay and conditions of our members, but we also care passionately about the environment in which our members work, and our young people learn. The NEU, and its predecessor unions, have been campaigning to remove the scourge of asbestos from our education buildings for more than 40 years and it is a testament to the failure of successive governments that we are still having to do this and that no government has yet conceded that it needs to begin a programme of phased removal, starting with those buildings in the worst condition. We acknowledge that this can’t happen overnight, but we have to begin somewhere.

Why is asbestos in schools such a major concern for NEU?

Unfortunately, the UK imported and used more blue and brown asbestos than other countries, leaving us with a legacy of one of the highest mesothelioma rates in the world. Mesothelioma is an incurable cancer caused by exposure to asbestos. In 2019 the DfE’s Asbestos Management Assurance Process report established that around 80 per cent of schools in England still contained asbestos.

Sarah Lyons: "It is virtually impossible to guarantee to manage asbestos safely in schools when even a small release could be deadly." 

It’s not just found in areas you would expect, like pipe and boiler lagging, but in parts of buildings accessible to staff and children, like walls, pillars, ceilings, floor tiles and window frames, where it can be unwittingly disturbed – by contractors who aren’t aware it’s there, by staff who may unknowingly release fibres by attaching displays to walls, but also by children. Schools are different to other workplaces because of the presence of children who are naturally boisterous and unpredictable. Slamming doors and banging into walls and pillars can release fibres, as can acts of vandalism.

Education staff are dying from mesothelioma. Since 1980 more than 450 school teaching professionals have died of mesothelioma in Britain, with more than 300 having died since 2000. It is likely that the official occupational mortality statistics significantly underestimate the number of education staff that die of mesothelioma, because they do not include the deaths of anyone over the age of 74. Mesothelioma has a long latency period, and as such, many of those who die of this awful disease are 75 or over. Neither do these statistics include anyone whose last occupation was not teaching. Therefore, the actual number of teachers/former teachers dying of mesothelioma will be much higher.

Between 2003 and 2023, the mortality statistics show that 12 school secretaries, 16 nursery nurses, 44 teaching assistants and 38 school midday assistants died of mesothelioma.

We do not know how many school caretakers, cleaners and cooks have died from mesothelioma as their deaths are not recorded under school occupations.

The strongest argument for removing asbestos from schools, however, is the risk to children. In 2013 the Government’s Committee on Carcinogenicity established that: “Because of differences in life expectancy, for a given dose of asbestos the lifetime risk of developing mesothelioma is predicted to be about 3.5 times greater for a child first exposed at age 5 compared to an adult first exposed at age 25 and about 5 times greater when compared to an adult first exposed at age 30.” In other words, children are more likely to live long enough after exposure to develop mesothelioma.

Photograph: iStock

Despite this, successive governments have been prepared to turn a blind eye to these dangers, perhaps because children aren’t dying in childhood, but as adults where any asbestos-related deaths will be recorded against their last occupation, rather than linked to exposure in school. We just don’t know how many, because 30, 40, 50 years later how do you prove it? 

An investigation by Dr Gill Reed, What is the real risk of asbestos in schools, published by NEU, outlines how the UK asbestos industry covered up the risk of developing mesothelioma to maximise construction profits (1940s–1999) and how successive UK governments failed to measure the real risk to staff and children.

Why isn’t there greater impetus to remove asbestos?

We regularly hear the argument that it’s safer to leave asbestos in place and manage it. We don’t accept this argument. It can and should be removed safely by appropriate contractors. It is virtually impossible to guarantee to manage it safely in schools when even a small release could be deadly. We regularly hear of asbestos being ‘discovered’ in schools. This should never happen; it should always be identified and managed in accordance with legal requirements.

The long latency period means that victims die many years after they are exposed, by which time it’s very difficult to hold anyone accountable. If asbestos killed its victims more quickly it seems likely that the problem would have been addressed years ago as a matter of urgency.

Of course, there’s a cost argument, but can we afford not to remove asbestos?  A report resulting from research commissioned by Mesothelioma UK, which NEU helped fund, Clearing The Air: The costs and benefits of removing asbestos from UK schools and hospitals, estimated that in 2023, the total costs to the UK economy of asbestos-related diseases for former school and hospital workers were just over £1.3 billion. The findings of the cost–benefit analysis suggest that removing asbestos from schools and hospitals within the next 10 years would save the UK economy almost £12 billion over 50 years in the reduced economic and social costs of asbestos-related diseases. The savings to the UK public finances are estimated to be around £3.6 billion.

Is there a way forward?

A report, The Health and Safety Executive’s Approach to Asbestos Management, authored by the House of Commons Work and Pensions Select Committee back in 2022 under the then chairmanship of Sir Stephen
Timms MP, offered a sensible way forward. Amongst its recommendations, it called for:

• A deadline to be set for the removal of asbestos from non-domestic buildings within 40 years, with a strategic plan to achieve this, focusing on removing the highest risk asbestos first and early removal from the highest risk settings like schools.
  
  
• The development of a central digital register of asbestos in non-domestic buildings, describing its location and type (to help inform a strategy for phased removal).

NEU would like to see the recommendations of this report implemented in full. In February this year, there was a suggestion that the HSE view might be changing when its chief executive Sarah Albon made some significant comments to the Work and Pensions Committee about the removal of asbestos from public buildings.

For decades there has been no acknowledgement by either HSE or government that removal should be the goal; instead, the focus has always been on leaving asbestos in place and managing the risk. So, the fact that the HSE spoke positively about the need to understand the continuing risk of asbestos in the built environment, and that there appeared to be agreement between HSE and government to ultimately look to remove asbestos entirely from the built environment was welcome news.

However, disappointingly there has been no follow up. We need a timeframe and firm commitments. Most schools still contain asbestos and every day that passes means that children and staff remain at risk of developing asbestos-related disease.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves is a former chair of the Asbestos in Schools Group. She understands the terrible impact of asbestos in her own constituency and in opposition was a powerful voice in favour of Government action to tackle the ‘time-bomb’ of asbestos in schools. Now she is in Government we urge her to implement the recommendations of the 2022 Work and Pensions Committee report and begin the process of making all schools safe for staff and children.

For more information see: neu.org.uk

Sarah Lyons is Senior policy manager for health, safety and environment at 
National Education Union (NEU)