The European Union, UK health and safety law and Brexit


The terms under which the UK will leave the European Union (EU) are still far from clear, with negotiations ongoing as this booklet went to press. A so-called hard Brexit could have severe consequences for health and safety law. 


Prime Minister Theresa May has promised that workers’ rights will be “protected and enhanced” after Brexit. But TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady says: “unions are sceptical — with good reason”. 


“We know that there are many Conservatives who would like nothing better than a bonfire of working rights, environmental regulations and safety standards,” she said. “The cliff-edge Brexiteers have key rights in their sights – including protections for agency workers, action against discrimination, and health and safety.”


Developments in European health and safety law have slowed down over recent years as the European Commission has adopted a more deregulatory approach, partly due to pressure from successive UK governments. But the European Union (EU) has continued to be an important source of UK health and safety law, a large part of which is now underpinned by the EU. 


Almost two-thirds (63%) of new British health and safety regulations introduced between 1997 and 2009 originated in Europe (41 out of 65 laws). For example, new Ionising Radiations Regulations 2017 came into force on 1 January 2018, implementing the requirements of the European Basic Safety Standards Directive (2013/59/Euratom) (see Chapter 8). Proposed changes to the European carcinogens and mutagens directive will mean new and reduced workplace exposure limits for a number of cancer-causing chemicals. British trade unions and others have also used complaints to the European Commission, or threats to seek infraction proceedings (used where a law has been breached) to gain changes in UK legislation.


Brexit could put millions of UK workers at increased risk of accidents or injuries. The TUC says EU legislation has helped stop illnesses and injuries at work and saved lives and contributed to “a reduction in workplace fatalities in the UK. In 1992 there were 368 worker fatalities in Britain; this dropped to 142 [in 2015]. Over this period, the rate of deaths fell from 1.5 to 0.46 per 100,000 workers”.



The Tories’ track record is one of attacking workers’ rights and health and safety protection at work. The 2010-15 Coalition government, for example, used a number of reviews of health and safety legislation to “reduce burdens on business” and attack health and safety law and its enforcement. But the reviews were severely limited by what they could propose because of the minimum standards provided by the European Union’s legislative framework.


“This means that the government has been unable to remove or reduce much of the protection that they may, ideally, like to,” the TUC said. “The only major regulatory reduction they have managed is the exemption of many self-employed workers from the protection of health and safety regulation, and that was only possible because the Framework Directive does not cover the self-employed.”



As well as the Working Time Regulations, UK health and safety regulations emanating from European directives that could be at risk include the following:



• the so-called “six-pack” of regulations that came into force in 1993, implementing the European Union’s framework, and five daughter directives: the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations, the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations, the Health and Safety (Display Screen Equipment) Regulations, the Personal Protective Equipment at Work Regulations; the Manual Handling Operations Regulations; and the Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations;


• the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health (COSHH) Regulations;



• the Control of Major Accident Hazards (COMAH) Regulations;



• the Construction (Design and Management) (CDM) Regulations;



• the Control of Asbestos Regulations;



• the Control of Noise at Work Regulations;



• the Work at Height Regulations;



• the Control of Electromagnetic Fields at Work Regulations; and



• the Offshore Installations (Offshore Safety Directive) (Safety Case etc) Regulations.