Award-winning writer, editor and journalist Katharine Quarmby argues that the Government must act to reduce the health risks associated with asbestos.

It’s the people you remember, when you have been reporting on asbestos. I remember interviewing Helen Bone two years ago at her house in Middlesbrough. Helen was a former nurse with a family and everything to live for, who was campaigning to raise awareness of the risks of asbestos, after receiving a diagnosis of the asbestos-related cancer, mesothelioma, in 2021. Helen died in November 2024.
 
There are so many others I have met who are still living with asbestos-related conditions, and then there are the campaigners, such as consultant nurse and CEO of Mesothelioma UK, Liz Darlison, and countless more, including doctors, asbestos consultants and lawyers, all of whom are horrified by the continuing and avoidable deaths from exposure to asbestos. 
 
Once, asbestos was once seen as a magic mineral and imported into the UK for about 150 years, mostly from Canadian mines. Between the 1930s and the 1980s, it was mixed into cement, roofing materials, textured walls and ceilings, floor tiles, roofs and gutters, and used to lag or insulate pipes and boilers. Brown asbestos – which the overwhelming majority of mesothelioma cases are believed to be linked to – was banned in 1985; a ban on other types of asbestos followed in 1999. But the legacy of asbestos lives on. 

The current picture

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) estimates that between 210,000 and 400,000 buildings in the UK contain asbestos. Other sources put the number at far higher - six million tonnes of asbestos spread across approximately 1.5 million buildings. The UK is thought to have the dubious record of having the most asbestos per capita in Europe.
 
The National Organisation of Asbestos Consultants (NORAC), in conjunction with the Asbestos Testing and Consultancy Association (ATaC), launched the first-ever review of UK asbestos management in a report to parliament in 2022. Of 128,761 buildings that experts examined over a six-month period, 78 per cent had asbestos. A staggering 71 per cent of the asbestos items were damaged, with social housing, schools, hospitals and other public buildings being affected. The report concluded that there was “a high proportion of asbestos materials in UK buildings that could present a potential risk to public health”.
 
Every year, in the UK alone, it is estimated that 5,000 people die because of their exposure to asbestos. It’s Britain’s biggest occupational killer and the HSE says that the UK has the highest rate of mesothelioma deaths per capita in the world.  

Exposure

Most of those exposed to asbestos inhale loose fibres that become airborne when materials that contain it are damaged or disturbed – through building work, natural damage or weathering over time. While previously men working in building-related activities and heavy industries were the most likely to develop asbestos-related diseases, data now suggests the number of women dying as a result of exposure is growing. Cancer Research UK says that 17 percent of mesothelioma cases are now in women. In 2020, 2,544 people died from mesothelioma – a rise of six per cent from the previous year. Of those, 459 were women. Cancer Research UK found that the rate of new mesothelioma cases in women has doubled since the early 1990s, while increasing by around half in men.
 
A study by Mesothelioma UK, with the University of Sheffield, found that high-risk occupations for women differ from those for men, with female teachers, healthcare workers and clerical workers all facing increased risk.

What next?

Every death from asbestos is a tragedy that affects families, friends, and colleagues - but it is also an avoidable risk. Asbestos is a huge accident not only waiting to happen but actually occurring far too frequently in the UK. I have spent the last three years working on three linked cross-border investigations into the legacy of asbestos, covering asbestos in buildings, water, waste and ship-building across Europe. And I’ve come to the conclusion that despite the best efforts of campaigners, asbestos consultants, doctors and academics, it’s down to the Government to act to save lives.
 
In 2021, the Work and Pensions Select Committee called for evidence about the HSE’s approach to asbestos management. After six months of taking evidence and considering the matter, the committee unanimously recommended that the (then Conservative) government set a 40-year deadline to remove asbestos from public and commercial buildings, arguing that the risk to health is only likely to increase as building renovations take place as part of the UK’s efforts to move towards net zero emissions.
 
The former government responded to the select committee, saying there was no “compelling evidence” to justify active removal and that there was no need for a register.
 
In Europe, the Flanders region of Belgium and Poland have developed strategies to remove asbestos. Poland is the only EU member state with a national action plan to eradicate it by 2032. The European Union enacted the Asbestos at Work Directive in 2023, tightening rules around exposure to asbestos. In Australia, a wide-ranging management plan is led by the government itself. I think the Labour government here could take a lead from Poland, Australia and Flanders and act on this lethal legacy. 
 
I remember Mesothelioma UK boss, Liz Darlison, telling me that it horrifies her that people in the UK and elsewhere are still being diagnosed with cancer from an absolutely avoidable risk. She said, “We have known about the dangers of it for nearly 70 years and those who can effect change aren’t doing enough. Another person walks into [the] clinic, and I keep thinking, why do we keep exposing people to this?”
 
The Government needs to act now to save lives. The Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, has promised to look at the asbestos legacy and consider action - but this can’t be put on the back burner. Every month that the Government fails to act is another month in which people are being exposed to asbestos through no fault of their own - in their homes, at work, in the air and in public buildings. It doesn’t need to be that way - but only the Government can really turn this around.

Katharine Quarmby is an investigative journalist, producer and editor, with a keen interest in the environment and climate change. Over the last five years she has worked with a European journalism team on environmental investigations on subjects including pesticides, asbestos and flood preparedness.