A new clause reprehensibly sneaked in to the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill this week overturns the automatic right of an injured person to claim compensation if he is injured as a result of a breach of health and safety regulations. Call me Dave had of course announced earlier in the year that this protection was in his sights, but it wasn't in this Bill, and now despite strong opposition the "government" pushed it through.

Add to this the intention to scrap Health and Safety inspections "for all but most high-risk businesses", looks like the workplace is going to become a far more dangerous place.

There's progress for you.

Some health and safety is beyond a joke, a bloke at work disciplined a few months back because he was charging his phone at work with his charger that hadn't been PAT tested, really.

Another rule brought in that any car entering works car park must have their hazard lights on while in motion.

I'm all for protecting workers but some rules are silly and in some cases people need to take personal responsibility

Yes-yes, but the OP wasn't alluding to any of the petty assertions you've just informed us of, was he?

The sites now exempted from H&S inspections include farms - which are so safe that they just happen to have a high rate of injury and death.

In answer to Horatio Yed - there's health and safety, and there's health a safety.

Even this government has admitted that there is nothing wrong with the legislation - the problem is one of interpretation and, perhaps even more so, how people choose to use it as an excuse for something.

A little example. A few weeks ago, I was attending a forum on school dinners, which are now subject to yet another government review. The people who have been put in charge of leading the review are Henry Dimbleby and John Vincent, who are the founders of a chain of around a dozen quality fast food outlets in and around London.

Henry was there to meet school catering staff (including cooks) to hear about their experiences of the system as it used to be and as it is at present.

A couple of examples of what most people would regard as excellent practise were mentioned, but both had been eradicated on H&S grounds. Henry leapt in at this point to say that, as a restaurateur, he knew that neither were H&S issues in terms of any legislation. They sounded, he said, simply as though someone didn't like something - and used H&S as an excuse to stop it. There were plenty of nods of agreement to that.

And that's a businessman/entrepreneur, who has to deal with such things, saying that.

I can imagine Cameron and his buddies want more of us plebs to die off, we're less of a burden that way

No. Who'd polish their shoes?

What is even more worrying to me is that Cameron had indicated that they would be looking at this measure in due course, but in fact had instead slipped it into the current Bill, so far from any impact assessment, there has been absolutely NO discussion or the slightest consultation about it. So not even the shortest or most superficial of consultations about something which may be a matter of life and death, literally. Speaks volumes.

Nick and Vince?

I thought they used Nick instead of Andrex?

As for Vince, isn't he the Court Jester?

Ill preface this by saying I am absolutely no fan of the coalition or the tories.

However as fas as I am aware the only two effects on health and safety legislation that are proposed within this legislation are a removal of strict liability under for eg Reg 4 of PUWER essentially taking us back to the position prior to Stark v Post office 2000 and removing a vicarious liability for harrasment again reversing Majorowski v Guys ans St Thomas. Neither remove a right to pursue compensation or for an award to be made against a negligent employer

Stark was always a very narrow interpretation of PUWER 4. This regulation broadly imposes a duty on an employer to maintain their work equipment (the regulation includes the word shall- this is important!) In the case of Stark the Claimant, a postman was riding his bike when his peddle snapped and he fell and was injured. He sued alleging that the bike was not properly maintained. The post office defended the claim on the basis that they had maintained the bike and its peddle. It was regularly inspected and the failure of peddle simply could not be anticipated or reasonably prevented. They therefore contended that they had demonstrated a more than reasonable system of maintenance and had discharged their duty under the regulation. I.e the accident was not their fault. The courts ultimately held however that as the wording of PUWER stated that employers shall maintain equipment, there was no room for 'so far as reasonably practicable' and the duty was absolute. as such they held that the fact the peddle snapped was evidence itself that the bike had not been maintained and imposed a strict liability. Following this case if any work equipment is 'defective ' irrespective of whether an employer could should or even did maintain it they are liable for their employees injury. Removing this strict interpretation of what was an EU directive is only levelling the playing field. If an employer hasnt bothered to maintain their work equipment and this breaks and injures employees they will still be in breach of PUWER. This change will only benefit employers who had proper systems of inspection and maintenance in place already but were being penalised by the strict liability provisions of stark. If anything it will be an incentive to step up maintenance etc as at present their is no reward for doing so in litigation (although obvioulsy this should help prevent the accident in teh first instance)

and breathe