Health & Safety - Taking a stand

10.38.53pm GMT Mon 4th Jan 2010

Every Christmas Day for many years the Eastbourne Silver Band has played a free concert at the Bandstand. This year was no exception and the traditional event was packed with revellers. A regular highlight, for many years, has been for local children to be invited onto the stage to sing Away in a Manger. As the children lined up with their parents by the side of the stage the Bandmaster announced that, due to Health and Safety, the children were not going to be allowed up to sing.

Lib Dem parliamentary campaigner Stephen Lloyd said: "I attended the Boxing Day event at the Bandstand the following morning so was not aware of this unbelievingly stupid decision until a local resident called me about it. For decades it has been a tradition in Eastbourne that on Christmas Day our children sing Away in the Manger from the stage with our wonderful Silver Band. For someone to have told the Bandmaster to stop this custom in the name of the ever-increasing, dictatorial absurdities of Health & Safety is simply not on. "

Stephen added: "I am thoroughly fed up with the growing power of pernicious, government dictated 'Health and Safety' legislation. Slowly but surely over the last 30 years all the sort of normal everyday acts that we used to take for granted and are a part of the very fabric of British society have been chipped away. The bandstand incident on Christmas Day is a classic example of such lunacy and, frankly, I believe its time we all took a stand."

"I pledge that if I were to be elected the MP for Eastbourne & Willingdon I will take on these ludicrous, petty acts of Health & Safety silliness not just in our town but across the UK. From Eastbourne outwards, I invite the public to contact me with all the other foolish examples we know have ended up blighting so many people's lives. I will then publicise these examples and speak out against their petty tyranny. Health & Safety's often, ludicrous rules which intrude into our daily lives are a classic example of big government. Its time to take a stand!"