The Forum of Private Business has described changes agreed this week to workplace health & safety, following their acceptance in the House of Lords, as a landmark moment for small businesses and a long-awaited victory for common sense.

The business support organisation says the removal of strict liability for employers, agreed by the Lords on Tuesday after they had previously returned the issue to MPs to reconsider, will make it harder for employees to sue their employers if they are injured or become ill at work.

The new measures are part of the are part of the Enterprise & Regulatory Reform Bill. They were due to come into force on 6 April, but were held up by the House of Lords, which sent the Bill back to the Commons, asking MPs to reconsider the changes because the Lords felt the outcome could be more dangerous working conditions. 

But Parliament rejected these calls and retured the Bill to the Lords stille seeking to change the laws on health & safety. And on Tuesday (23 April) the Lords agreed the measures. The changes will take place on 1 October.

“This is a deregulatory measure which means as long as an employer takes reasonable steps on health & safety then they shouldn’t be subject to prosecution for things they couldn’t possibly have predicted or prevented,” said the Forum of Private Business's Head of Policy, Alex Jackman.

“It’s a fact of life that accidents, unfortunately, sometimes do just happen with nothing that can be done to prevent them. This new approach to health & safety goes a long way to recognising this. For too long the entire onus has been on the employer as part of a blame-game approach that has cost business millions and has also tarnished people’s view of what is a very serious and important subject."

Health & safety has been undermined by being blamed for many ridiculous decisions such as the removal of flower baskets from town centre lampposts and stopping children playing conkers. The Health & Safety Executive has been at pains to explode these myths, pointing out that the decisons have nothing to do with health & safety. But the mere fact that health & safety has been blamed in some high visibility newspaper stories has undermined health & safety and helped ease the way for the current changes.

However, the Health & Safety Executive (HSE) is keen to point out that the changes do not remove employers' responsibility for ensuring workplaces are safe and healthy places.

And with HSE now charging companies £124-an-hour in Fees for Intervention if they do find any transgretions and 40% of the first fees having gone to construction companies, it is probably unwise for any company in construction to believe health & safety is less impoirtant.

The average cost of a health & safety investigation after a breach of regulations is £20,000, so it is in companies' interests to avoid them.

If you would like to buy a copy of the Forum of Private Business Health & Safety Guide, you can call the helpline 0845 130 1722 or visit the health & safety section of the website by clicking here.