The Government are set to announce that hundreds of thousands of businesses will be exempt from “burdensome” health and safety inspections under a “blitz on red tape”.
From April next year, the Government intends to scrap or overhaul more than 3,000 regulations and legislation will be introduced which ministers say will protect business from “compensation culture” claims.
Businesses will only face health and safety inspections if they are operating in higher risk areas, such as construction, if they have an incident or a track record of poor performance.
From next month, the Government will introduce legislation to ensure that businesses will only be held liable for civil damages in health and safety cases if they can be shown to have acted negligently. This will end the current situation where businesses can automatically be liable for damages even if they were not actually negligent.
Business Secretary Vince Cable said of the changes: “In these tough times, businesses need to focus all their energies on creating jobs and growth, not being tied up in unnecessary red tape.
“I’ve listened to those concerns and we’re determined to put common sense back into areas like health and safety, which will reduce costs and fear of burdensome inspections.”
The British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) welcomed the changes to health and safety regulations and red tape, with Adam Marshall, director of policy and external affairs at the BCC, saying: “Ensuring that low-risk workplaces are exempted from inspections is a sensible change that will save employers time and money without reducing the safety of workers.
“The overall number of regulations on the books remains far too high.”