The government has suffered a setback in its efforts to change a 115-year-old law protecting people at work.
The Coalition wanted to change the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill so that, in the event of an industrial accident, workers would have to prove their boss knew a machine was unsafe before they could claim compensation.
Last week the House of Lords narrowly passed an amendment to the Bill, retaining the ‘strict liability’ clause introduced in 1898 to protect workers.
However, the government, which wants to scrap the clause as it is a “burden on business”, is expected to overturn the Lords’ decision when the Bill returns to the House of Commons.
Tom Jones, head of policy and public affairs at Thompsons Solicitors said: “The government’s amendments to health and safety at work regulations turn the clock back over 100 years on safety at work.
“If the original clause is passed then workers injured through no fault of their own will no longer be able to refer to a breach of the health and safety regulations and will have to prove not only that the machine was unsafe but that the employers knew or should have known about it and that it was the employer’s fault.
“The reality today is that most machinery is complex and there can be many reasons why it goes wrong.
“Even Victorian judges recognised that it was very difficult for a worker to prove what the employer knew or should have known and that it was perverse for a worker on his or her own to have to prove more than was required of the State under health and safety regulations.
“This is loading the dice massively against injured people.”
An amendment by Labour reinstates the civil liability by neutering, rather than removing the clause.
All Conservative and Liberal Democrat peers who voted tried to defeat the Labour amendment, but it was passed by a narrow majority of two.
The government’s clause would overturn law in place since 1898 by removing strict liability from the Health and Safety at Work Act.
Strict liability applies in limited circumstances where, for example, there has been a failure to adequately guard a machine, leading to a traumatic amputation.
Without it, injured workers will always have to prove that the employer knew or ought to have known that something was unsafe if they are to get compensation.
The government says strict liability creates a burden on business and ministers claim they are removing it on the basis of a review of health and safety legislation by Professor Ragnar Lofstëdt.
But critics point out that Professor Lofstedt has said the government’s actions go further than he recommended.
Union News
