EXCL Parliament hands out bumper £30k compensation after slip ends in fractured knee
2 min read
Commons bosses handed almost £30,000 to a slip victim who fractured their knee on the parliamentary estate, PoliticsHome can reveal.
Some £27,000 was handed over in May this year to a person who fell while crossing New Palace Yard and fractured their knee back in June 2014.
The bumper payout dwarfs the sums awarded to other parliamentary mishap victims, which were awarded between 2015 and 2017 and were revealed by PoliticsHome in August.
Since this site first requested information about the payouts, the eye-watering claim from 2014 was agreed and handed over. Parliamentary sources said the delay was not the result of a legal battle.
“The accident took place on 7 June 2014,” the Commons revealed in response to a Freedom of Information request.
“It involved one person who slipped while crossing the roadway at New Palace Yard and who sustained a fractured knee. The sum of compensation paid to the claimant by the House of Commons was £27,000.”
PoliticsHome can also reveal that the £12,200 handed to a cleaner in 2016 who slipped on a contaminated kitchen floor was awarded because staff failed to fix a long-standing issue.
An investigation into the matter, launched after the incident, found leaks from a detached drain pipe behind a self-cleaning oven had been making the floor in the area wet for four years.
The judge in the case accepted “oral evidence that these floor contaminations had been an intermittent issue since 2012 and continued to the present day,” documents revealed.
The cleaner required treatment from paramedics for back and elbow injuries and was taken to St Thomas’ Hospital after they slipped on the “greasy” floor tiles in the Terrace Cafeteria kitchen.
Elsewhere, a visitor at a House of Lords dinner won almost £20,000 after a waiter was caught in the ribs by a wheelchair handle and splashed them with hot water.
In 2015 a cleaner was given more than £18,000 after a ceiling tile fell on her head, and in 2016 a staff member was awarded £13,300 after he fell off his motorbike in the parliamentary car park.
A Commons spokesperson told PoliticsHome: "We are committed to protecting the health and safety of those that work on or visit the Parliamentary estate.
"We have in place robust arrangements, including a network of fully trained first aiders, to help prevent accidents and we work to reduce harm wherever possible.
"The number of accidents reported are in line with comparable organisations, and the type and number of accidents are not due to any inherent work practices within the buildings."
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