Addressing the UK’s Greatest Infrastructure Challenge - Asbestos

On 19th June, the UK Government published its anticipated 10-year Infrastructure Strategy. It set out a clear ambition to rebuild and invest in the infrastructure critical for delivering a more productive economy, while improving living standards for people across the country.

The strategy includes some very interesting and welcome policy decisions, especially the recognition that social infrastructure – such as schools and hospitals – are just as vital to living standards and prosperity as economic infrastructure – such as roads and rail.

The Government underlines that “maintaining a healthy, educated and safe population is at the heart of the government’s missions. That requires high quality public services provided in buildings and structures that are fit for purpose.”

I could not agree more.

“Achieving this requires a strategic approach to the renewal and repair of public buildings. This does not currently exist, and that must change.”

Again, I could not agree more.

Because as we know, too much of the UK’s public estate is not currently fit for purpose. The Chancellor herself stated that “crumbling public buildings are a sign of the decay that has seeped into our everyday lives.”

That decay is perhaps best represented by the UK’s greatest infrastructure challenge - the legacy of asbestos which is prevalent across this country.

Far from a problem of the past, asbestos remains the UK’s no.1 workplace killer, responsible for the deaths of thousands of people annually from mesothelioma, asbestosis and asbestos-related lung cancers. The UK has one of the highest death rates from mesothelioma in the world.

Asbestos is present in over 80% of schools and approximately 94% of NHS trusts across the UK, an estimated 6 million tonnes of asbestos, spread across 1.5 million buildings – the most asbestos per capita in Europe.

Yet, despite the risk presented to the UK public by asbestos, exposed to this deadly material on a daily basis, there is no coordinated strategy to tackle this issue at present.

As the Government quite rightly points out, “that must change.” 

There are signs of the lack of attention which asbestos receives within the Infrastructure Strategy itself. For example, specific announcements are made for the “eradication of reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC) from the NHS estate by 2035.”

A welcome announcement for improving building safety standards, absolutely. Yet, RAAC has fortunately killed a total of zero people across the UK to date. Asbestos kills thousands, is estimated to have cost the UK economy £1.3 billion in 2023, and receives no mention.

Furthermore, whilst the strategy highlights funding will be prioritised towards certain sectors, such as education, it is not clear how the responsible departments could use this funding to remove asbestos from public buildings over the long term. In regard to schools, asbestos is not effectively taken into account by the Department for Education when making building repair decisions at present.

Decisions on the UK schools to be rebuilt and repaired is currently guided by the Condition Data Collection 2 (CDC2) Programme. As it states, it “does not report on hazardous materials (principally asbestos.)” The consequences of this are stark.

In May 2025, the Department for Education announced nearly £470 million for projects “like fixing crumbling roofs and removing dangerous asbestos” from schools. However, having examined the funding decisions made for 2025-26, only 16 of the 656 schools awarded funding had projects specifically mentioning asbestos in their project names. This accounts for less than 3% of projects awarded funding.

Most worrying, of these 16 projects, 10 highlighted they were “urgent” or “high priority,” indicating that works only get approved when situations are increasingly dangerous.

Campaigners across the asbestos community have long called for Government to develop a more strategic, comprehensive approach to managing asbestos, saving both lives and public funds in the long-term. This was notably highlighted by Emma Lewell, MP for South Shields, in a timely debate she secured in Westminster Hall on Wednesday, where she argued that “the Government do not have a comprehensive picture of where asbestos is. Consequently, there is no strategic plan to have it removed.”

As she argued, a key solution toward the development of this strategic plan is the creation of a digital asbestos register, enabling the collection of data to understand the scale of the UK’s asbestos problem and how it can be comprehensively resolved.

This solution was also recommended by the Minister responsible for asbestos, the Rt Hon Sir Stephen Timms MP, when he was chair of the Work and Pensions Select Committee, in a  report published in 2022.

Significant work has already been undertaken by the asbestos industry on this point. Asbestos Information CIC released a groundbreaking report in April 2025, which analysed data from nearly 400,000 properties and created the first digital map of asbestos risk across the country. Whilst industry push ahead, Government isn’t keeping up.

Now, with the launch of this Infrastructure Strategy and commitment of £725 billion in long-term funding for maintenance and major projects, the Government can and should find the resources needed to review its current approach and develop a comprehensive strategy to fix this issue, starting with support for the creation of a digital asbestos register. As the Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, stated in October "Whatever we need to do to reduce that risk, we absolutely need to do."

The Chancellor described this strategy as one to kick-off “the decade of national renewal [the Labour Government] promised Britain”. With this comes an unmissable opportunity to finally fix the UK’s greatest infrastructure challenge, rid this country of asbestos and achieve the Government’s objective - to deliver high quality public services provided in buildings and structures that are truly fit for purpose.