January 2021 Monthly Blog – H&S laws post-Brexit
A strange start to the year
It would take pretty major news to eclipse the impact that COVID-19 has had on our lives, but Brexit of course has never been far from our front pages throughout 2020.
And now here we are; the deal is done, Britain has officially left the EU, and both sides have agreed some kind of trade deal - to general all-round relief.
Life before the EU
As you listen to (some) politicians decrying the supposedly heavy hand of EU bureaucracy, it’s easy to fall into the trap of believing EU laws to be a uniformly bad thing.
I’m old enough however to remember factory supervisors in the 1980’s bemoaning our inability to operate brand-new production machinery imported from the Continent until our engineers had spent several weeks retrofitting safety guards and noise enclosures.
The cost was considerable, guards added as an afterthought often impeded efficient working, and the delays in pressing machines into service placed UK factories at a competitive disadvantage.
The problem of course was that many foreign machines failed to meet UK noise or guarding standards and so the EU responded by raising member state standards to the highest common denominator – i.e. ours. Now that we can happily import machines carrying the reassurance of that magic little CE mark, would we really want to go back in time?
As markets began to liberalise throughout the 1990’s my employers despatched me to check on businesses we were setting up in France and the Netherlands. The two day car journey from England (including a fuel and refreshment stop in Belgium) required me to carry four separate currencies and show my passport countless times. Perhaps the Schengen Area and the single currency were noble aims if some of the UK’s reservations could have been ironed out?
The times are a-changing
Most people won’t have spotted this yet but, the Health & Safety Executive has already flagged up three industries in which H&S laws have diverged this year. The UK has left the EU page of the HSE website lists:
- Chemicals industry and the safe management of chemicals,
- Placing civil explosives on the market,
- Manufacture and supply of new work equipment.
No doubt other changes will follow, and it remains to be seen whether the EU will remain happy that our H&S standards broadly mirror their own, or whether we have a falling-out because they feel we have made more than just minor tweaks.
But don't expect a bonfire of red tape
In a strange way, UK companies have rubbed along well with the EU, and our citizens have benefitted from a huge influx of different goods, services and skills.
We are not going to jeopardise a long-standing relationship – and nor will our trading partners want us to.
Although there may be occasional adjustments (as above) to health & safety laws, this writer is not expecting to see a widescale ditching of risk assessments, employee consultation, rights for pregnant women/nursing mothers, setting up of display screen equipment workstations, and so forth.
Nor would Britain’s trade unions: it would be a brave government indeed that would tell employees that working conditions were due to be rendered less safe by a watering-down of our legislation.
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