[SystemSafety] Proposed changes to the UK Health and Safety at Work Act

[Martin Lloyd]

Dear Colleagues

I would like to draw your attention to the following:

1. The UK government is proposing to change the Health and Safety at 
Work Act.
2. The proposed change is summarised below from the following (rather 
under-supported) petition at 
http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/41086 which includes the wording:

The amendment to Section 47 of the Health and Safety Work Act 1974, has 
been added to the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill at the eleventh 
hour.The amendmentwould mean that:

- Employers would no longer have a strict liability for the health and 
safety of their workers, for the first time since 1898.

- Workers could not rely on an employer's breach of health and safety 
law to win a personal injury claim, they would have to provide proof of 
negligence.

- Enforcement of health and safety law would be increasingly left up to 
a significantly weakened and less effective Health and Safety Executive.

- Employers will increasingly hide behind the defence that complying to 
health and safety regulations was not "reasonably practicable".

3. It would be very helpful to state the implications of this amendment 
and its likely consequences so that a reasoned case against it could be 
constructed.

4. It would be helpful to know how thecurrent state of UK Health and 
Safety Law compares with other countries at the moment, and also how far 
the proposed amendment would set the UK behind others in terms of its 
levels of protection for workers.

-- 
Kind regards

Martin Lloyd


===========================
Dr M H Lloyd CEng FIET
martin.farside at btinternet.com

Tel: +44(0)118 941 2728
Mobile: +44(0)786 697 6840

www.farsideresearch.co.uk
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