Electricity can kill. Each year hundreds of accidents at work involving an electric shock or burns are reported. Some of these are sadly fatal but even non-fatal shocks can cause severe and permanent injury. Those using electricity may not be the only ones at risk: poor electrical installations and faulty electrical appliances can lead to fires that may also cause death or injury to others. Most of these factors can be avoided by careful planning and straightforward precautions.
The powers-that-be not only in the United Kingdom and, of course, the whole of Europe, but also in such countries as Australia and New Zealand, South Africa, the United States and Canada have all decided that the issue of safety and electrical appliances is extremely important and they have all made the regular testing of all portable appliances mandatory, known either as PAT testing or test and tag.
Do you work with electrical appliances? My guess is you do, even if you don't realise it. The computer, the monitor, a photo copier, a credit card machine. You see how many of you use such items? When were they last tested? And that should include the plug, the cable and the actual appliance. They should be tested regularly. Perhaps you work in a kitchen: look at all the three-pin plugs in that kitchen and find out whether they have been tested? Possibly you're a housekeeper in a hotel: the vacuum cleaner, the electric iron, a kettle, microwave ovens, they all should be tested for your safety. You may work in a workshop where an electric drill, an electric saw, any tool with a three-pin plug can be a killer if not checked at regular intervals.
How can you tell? Very easily. Every item tested should have attached to the plug or the cable a green pass label. If it hasn't then in all likelihood the item has not been checked for safety.
A calibrated machine must be used for carrying out such tests; a volt meter is not sufficient for this purpose.
Business is bad, there is no money. Maybe in a year or two such arguments would not be valid, but not when the health and safety of employees, customers and guests is involved.