I am pleased that the theme for Global Women’s Day is Investing in Caring Not Killing, because this is the whole problem, not only with our government, but with governments worldwide. This country values money more than life. When a director fiddles the books, and because of his negligence his company looses money, he can face imprisonment. But if his negligence causes someone to be killed, he’s lucky, or we’re lucky, if he’s even prosecuted. Imprisonment just does not happen.

There are approximately 300 people killed at work in this country every year, and 30,000 suffer major injuries so that they suffer permanent disability and can never work again. The International Labour Organisation has worked out that over the world (because this country isn’t the worst), the total figures worldwide are that more people are killed in the workplace, every year, many of them women and children, than are killed in all of the wars that are going on. That is a terrible indictment to how employers treat their workers.

My son Simon was killed within two hours of starting a job. For the want of a tiny amount of money, my kind, gentle, clever son was killed. Simon was a university student. Personnel Selection, an agency, sent him to EUROMIN Ltd at Shoreham Harbour. The agency didn’t bother to check that the job was suitable or that it would be carried out safely. Too much money would have been involved in sending someone to check. Simon was killed because James Martell, EUROMIN’s manager, had adapted the grab on the crane used for unloading ships by welding hooks inside it to save the time in changing it for a safe lifting hook. It took two men two hours to change the hook over and back, total cost $20, would have saved my son's life. Simon was sent into a hold of a ship with no training, no instruction. The crane driver couldn’t see what was going on, he relied on a banksman. EUROMIN haven’t got a banksman, they pulled somebody off the ship to act as banksman, he spoke no English, he wasn’t trained in hand signals. The grab came in too low and the joystick operating it caught in the crane driver's clothing and it closed in less than a second, crushing Simon's skull.

A short trip by Personnel Selection could have saved Simon’s life. $20 spent by EUROMIN could have saved Simon’s life. And it’s worse, because the Health and Safety Executive had been alerted to unsafe practices at EUROMIN four years earlier. They visited the place but that day there was no work going on on the dock, but they didn’t revisit it because they haven’t got enough health and safety inspectors, because this country doesn’t fund the HSE well enough to carry out the job that it’s supposed to be doing.

With the help of Simon Jones’ Memorial Campaign we got Martell into court after three and a half years. Sadly he was acquitted of manslaughter but the company was found guilty on two health and safety charges.

The HSE has been under-resourced all along but it gets worse still, because Gordon Brown has given an open cheque to Tony Blair for his unnecessary war on Iraq and yet he is cutting the budget of the HSE. If the HSE was just allowed to increase its budget in line with inflation, in three years' time it would be spending $11 million more than it is now, but in fact its budget is being cut by $11million. The union representing health and safety inspectors has worked out that to make the HSE effective and save workers' lives it would cost $35 million extra every year. I’ve worked that out, it’s the cost that it takes Britain to bomb Iraq for nine days, and they’ve been doing that for the last 12 years since the Gulf War.

Gordon Brown, when his little daughter died, was so upset he made extra funding available to the NHS because he suddenly knew what it felt like to lose a child. It’s an awful pity that his consideration does not extend to those of us who have lost our children in the workplace. You do not stop being their mother because they grow up. And the cost of funding the HSE properly, all we’ve got to do is stop bombing Iraq for nine weeks.