Key changes and developments

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• The pandemic has exposed the scale of non-compliance with health and safety rules and highlighted a “crisis of enforcement”. The TUC found that just one in 218 workplaces had a safety inspection between March 2020 and April 2021 and there have been no prosecutions concerning Covid-related health and safety failings;

• A new single enforcement body will replace the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority, as well as the Employment Agency Standards Inspectorate and the HMRC National Minimum Wage enforcement team but only when “parliamentary time allows”;

• A new Building Safety Bill paves the way for the official formation of a new independent building safety regulator within the HSE to oversee the safe design, construction and occupation of high-risk buildings following the Grenfell Tower fire;

• HSE prosecutions fell by 13% compared to the previous year. The average level of and total amount of fines handed down for health and safety offences by the courts also fell;

• Northern Ireland-based firm H&M Engineering & Roofing Specialists was convicted of corporate manslaughter but was fined just £50,000 (£75,000 including fines for health and safety offences);

• The corporate manslaughter case against Wood Treatment collapsed. The firm and its director were facing manslaughter charges following the July 2015 explosion at the Bosley Wood Flour Mill in Cheshire which killed four workers.