Introduction

This latest edition of Health and safety law 2012, the Labour Research Department’s (LRD’s) annual guide to health and safety law, sets out the law using clear and practical language, explains the changes that have taken place since the last edition, and addresses further likely developments for 2012-2013. It is aimed at trade union members and reps, and will be of particular use to safety reps.

The guide is being published at a time of unprecedented government hostility towards health and safety regulation. Prime minister David Cameron chose his first public appearance in 2012 to pledge to tackle the “health and safety monster” that is “hampering business growth”, warning that local authorities need a “slap” to encourage them to work more effectively with businesses that are “battling against a tide of risk assessment forms”. According to the prime minister, the reason for the economy’s failure to grow is businesses’ fear of being “strangled by red tape and health and safety regulation”.

The prime minister’s observations follow similar comments from deputy prime minister Nick Clegg who, in October 2011, told a gathering of businessmen that the HSE needed a “culture change” to understand that its job was to “make businesses’ life easier not harder. “Why”, he asked rhetorically, “should regulators be able to turn up at your door whenever they want and as often as they want”. In response, Prospect, the union with 2,500 members working in the health and safety industry, including HSE inspectors, pointed out that “given the average lifespan of an SME is seven years, a business is more likely to fail than to receive a visit from an HSE inspector — more typically once in every 15 years”.

The government’s core message — that worker safety is not important — underscores other developments in the past year, such as the creation of an Independent Regulatory Challenge Panel, tasked with investigating complaints by businesses that safety decisions by individual inspectors are “incorrect or go beyond what is needed”. This year’s Queens Speech continued this trend, promising legislation “to limit state inspection of business”, which is now taking shape in the form of an Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill making its way through Parliament.

This deregulatory agenda is both ideological and cost driven. In October 2010, the government announced a 35% cut to the HSE’s budget, spread over four years. It is also dangerous. The HSE admits that cuts in enforcement activity will result in more work-related deaths, injury and illness, and accepts that “the expected lower level of enforcement [will] mean a consequent decrease in health and safety standards throughout Great Britain, with ensuing costs to society”.

According to Prospect, the combination of verbal attacks and cuts to staffing and other resources has left HSE staff feeling “overwhelmed and demoralised”. Cuts and policy changes, such as the government’s decision to cut proactive inspections by one third (see Enforcement: Chapter 1) have led campaigners such as Hilda Palmer of the Hazards Campaign and campaign group Families Against Corporate Killers to fear that the HSE will end up a “reactive rump”, arriving with the ambulances.

In a climate of job insecurity, fear of dismissal and attacks on facility time, effective solidarity and collective action to champion safe working practices are more important than ever, and reps will need to work hard to continue emphasising health and safety as a key organising issue in the interests of all workers, as well as continuing to campaign at local and national level.

Since the coalition government came to office in May 2010, there have been many campaigns and protests against the undermining of workplace health and safety, in particular, the Hazards Campaign “We didn’t vote to die at work”, and this year, the TUC made Workers Memorial Day (28 April 2012) a national Day of Action to defend health and safety.

The union safety effect is recognised by the HSE, which acknowledges that its own research evidence shows that “organisations with properly involved, unionised safety representatives achieve better health and safety performance than those without such representation”. The evidence in support of the union safety effect was updated and consolidated into a new report published by the TUC in May 2011, How unions make a difference to health and safety: the union effect, which can be downloaded from the TUC website at: www.tuc.org.uk/tucfiles/45/union_effect_2011.pdf.

The main official announcement since the last edition of Health and safety law has been the publication, in November 2011, of the review of health and safety regulation commissioned by the government and produced by Professor Ragnar Löfstedt, Reclaiming Health and Safety for all. The review is looked at in detail in Chapter 12: The Löfstedt Review of health and safety.

The Löfstedt review supports the role of safety reps in the workplace, agreeing that “boosting the responsibility and involvement of employees has the potential to bring about significant improvements in health and safety in the workplace” and endorsing evidence that workplaces with safety reps and joint safety committees record up to 50% fewer injuries. The review agrees that: “evidence clearly shows that when employees are actively engaged in health and safety, workplaces have lower accident rates”.

Health and safety law 2012 aims to provide trade union reps, and especially safety reps, with a comprehensive guide to the law on health and safety at work. It can be read in conjunction with its companion LRD publication, Safety reps in action (2011) (see final chapter - Further information), which provides an updated practical account of current best practice, using examples contributed by safety reps.

The booklet examines the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 and the Regulations made under the Act that deal with specific areas of health and safety. It looks at:

• the basic structure of health and safety law (Chapter 1);

• health and safety enforcement (Chapter 2);

• the management of health and safety (Chapter 3);

• safety representatives and safety committees (Chapter 4);

• the workplace and the working environment (Chapter 5);

• hazardous substances (Chapter 6);

• physical hazards, such as manual handling and repetitive tasks (Chapter 7);

• fire, noise, vibration and electricity (Chapter 8);

• hours of work (Chapter 9);

• the reporting of accidents and ill health (Chapter 10);

• stress, bullying and violence (Chapter 11); and

• the Löfstedt review of health and safety (Chapter 12).

The Act and the Regulations referred to in this booklet can all be found on the Legislation UK website at: www.legislation.gov.uk/.

Approved Codes of Practice (known as ACOPs) and Guidance on the Regulations are published by the HSE and can be downloaded free of charge from its website at: www.hse.gov.uk. This booklet also provides examples from legal claims, known as “case law”. In each instance, the case reference is given, consisting of the name of the individual or body making the application to the Court and the individual or body against whom it is being made.

For example, Allison v London Underground Ltd [2008] IRLR 440, tells you that the applicant was called Allison, the case was brought against London Underground Ltd and that the judgment was reported in the law reports for 2008. The letters IRLR stand for Industrial Relations Law Reports and the case was reported on page 440. Other relevant court cases and employment tribunal decisions not reported in IRLR are referenced wherever possible, either as they appeared in the press, or by the Court or tribunal reference number.

The Labour Research Department provides an enquiry service for affiliates and deals with many health and safety enquiries from union members and reps.

The monthly publications Safety Rep, Labour Research and Workplace Report also include many health and safety topics and recent LRD booklets include Preventing injury at work, May 2012 (£6.60) www.lrdpublications.org.uk/publications.php?pub=BK&iss=1617 and Safety, health and equality, April 2012 (£7.20) www.lrdpublications.org.uk/publications.php?pub=BK&iss=1612

The TUC bi-weekly online Risks updates provide another very useful tool. Sources for more information are highlighted throughout the booklet, including links to relevant websites, and the Further information section at the end, provides details of how and where to get the publications mentioned.