HSE says:
In December, the Health and Safety Executive reported that it was keen to pre-emptively disband the ever-growing tirade of ridiculous health and safety myths that surround pantomimes. The HSE is often accused of ‘spoiling the fun' during the festive season by supposedly imposing rules such as banning the throwing of sweets to panto audiences and forbidding many ‘risky' decorations around Santa's grottos nationwide, leading to stronger public perception of the organisation as "a bunch of killjoys," as the HSE put it in their media releases.
But the team made special efforts this year to remind people, through press releases and the media, that in most cases, it is not the HSE who imposes such restrictions. Many public organisations such as church halls and amateur panto groups undertake these policies themselves in order to reduce the risk of injury-related law suits. The HSE goes on to say that in fact, organisations often "use health and safety as a convenient excuse not to take any risks as they are fearful about litigation by anyone hurt on their premises
Cameron Adam, Head of HSE's Entertainments and Leisure sector says that some organisations concern themselves too much with trivial risks: "The chance of someone being seriously hurt from being hit by a sweet thrown by a panto actor is very low and not something we would get involved in, or indeed worry about. Real health and safety is about avoiding death, serious injury and ill health, not wasting time on trivial risks or covering your back by stopping activities. We want people to distinguish between the real health and safety issues that people face at work as opposed to the trivial."