Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 (General Duties of Self-Employed Persons) (Prescribed Undertakings) Regulations 2015 — House of Lords, 2015-07-22
Topic: Labor
Rosalind Altmann (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank noble Lords for their comments, and I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy, and the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, for their, albeit reluctant, welcoming of the proposals I want to provide some clarifications that were asked for by the noble Lord. The obligations of the self-employed to others are unaffected. Their obligations to employees are unaffected and Section 3(1) and (2) will still apply I also make it clear that the exemptions will be clarified in specific, detailed guidance from the Health and Safety Executive. The definition of self-employed that the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, asked me about is in Section 53 of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act and is rather broad, stating that, "‘self-employed person’ means an individual who works for gain or reward otherwise than under a contract of employment, whether or not he himself employs others" A director of a limited company is an employee of that company. If that company employs others—that is, is an employer—it will have duties under Section 2 of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act towards its employees I take my noble friend Lord Cormack’s point about the term "probabilistic", which seems to have been more ballistic today than one might have expected, and I will relay his request to the department. As far as banning acronyms is concerned, as someone who is steeped in pensions, these have often been the bane of my life and I sympathise to some degree I share the concerns of the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, about the agriculture industry. It is indeed an industry, as is construction, in which there have been an enormous number of accidents and fatalities. The duties on the self-employed to report accidents are not affected in any way by these changes but it is anticipated that they will remove 1.7 million people from the scope of Section 3(2) of the Health and Safety and Work etc. Act 1974 and will result in savings to the self-employed of £4.7 million over 10 years. Obviously, the source of those savings is subject to estimation but it appears that a number of self-employed people who do not pose any risk to others, such as a bookkeeper working from their own home and not coming into contact with anybody else, mistakenly believe that they are required to carry out health and safety assessments or are approached by consultants who lead them to believe that they need to spend money on having such an assessment. I entirely agree with the noble Lord that as long as the guidance is clear and the clarifications are available—so that people who are exempt know they are exempt, and those who could pose a risk to the public and are therefore not exempt will be able to identify themselves—this should indeed result in savings, as recommended by the Löfstedt report We have had an independent review. We have listened to the concerns and the requests for amendments that have been made, particularly by the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, and have responded to those. The catch-all phrase in Regulation 2(b) should make it absolutely clear that we are intending to cover anybody who potentially poses a risk to the public, and they will still have to comply with health and safety regulations.