The European Union (EU) and UK Health and Safety Law


Although developments have slowed down in recent years, the European Union (EU) has continued to be an important source of UK health and safety law. In recent years the European Commission has adopted a more deregulatory approach, partly due to pressure from the UK government. The TUC reported in April 2016 that the number of new directives has halved in the past five years and the European Commission’s most recent work programme abandoned 80 proposals and introduced just 23.


However, the new Control of Electromagnetic Fields at Work Regulations 2016 came into force on 1 July 2016 implementing a 2013 European Directive on the minimum health and safety requirements needed to protect workers from the risks of exposure to physical agents (electromagnetic fields) (see Chapter 8). And in May 2016, the European Commission announced proposed changes to the Carcinogens and Mutagens directive to limit workplace exposure to 13 cancer-causing chemicals by including new or amended limit values – at present there are limits for just three.


In addition, a large part of UK health and safety law is now underpinned by the EU. Almost two-thirds (63%) of new British health and safety regulations introduced between 1997-2009 originated in Europe (41 out of 65 laws), according to the TUC. And British trade unions and others have used complaints to the European Commission, or threats to seek infraction proceedings, to gain changes in UK legislation.


The June 2016 EU referendum vote to leave could therefore have huge consequences for UK health and safety law. Campaigning for a remain vote in the run up to the referendum, the TUC warned that leaving the EU could put millions of UK workers at increased risk of accidents or injuries. Its EU Membership and Health & Safety report set out that EU legislation has helped stop illnesses and injuries at work and saved lives.


“These new safety rules have contributed to a reduction in workplace fatalities in the UK. In 1992 there were 368 worker fatalities in Britain; this dropped to 142 last year. Over this period, the rate of deaths fell from 1.5 to 0.46 per 100,000 workers,” it reported.


As the booklet went to press, the timetable for withdrawal from EU membership was not clear. It will take at least two years and David Cameron indicated that he would not initiate the process, leaving this instead to whoever becomes the new leader of the Tory party in the autumn. But the Tories have made clear their intention to reduce so-called “red tape” and once we leave the EU, the government will be able to decide whether or not to keep the health and safety protection derived from EU law.


UK health and safety regulations emanating from European directives, and now at risk, include the following:


• The so-called “six-pack” of regulations that came into force in 1993 implementing the European framework and five daughter directives. As the TUC explains, these “established broad-based obligations on member states to ensure that employers evaluate, avoid and reduce workplace risks in consultation with their workforce”. They are 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 new Control of Electromagnetic Fields at Work Regulations; and


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


As this chapter sets out (see page 18), the previous Coalition government used a number of reviews of health and safety legislation to “reduce burdens on business” and attacked both health and safety law and its enforcement. But, as the TUC explains, “All these reviews have been severely limited by what they could propose because of the minimum standards that the European legislative framework provides. This means that the government has been unable to remove or reduce much of the protection that they may, ideally, like to. 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.”


It warned that an exit from the EU could allow the UK government to seriously reduce the health and safety protection workers have. Unions will be campaigning hard over the coming months to make sure this does not happen.