The following has been supplied by the TUC:
The TUC's top safety expert has branded the government's latest move to relax workplace safety controls as 'stupid and dangerous'. Hugh Robertson said the Deregulation Bill announced in the 8 May Queen's speech will pave the way for self-employed workers 'who pose no risks to others' to be removed from the scope of the Health and Safety at Work Act. According to the TUC head of safety, the move makes no sense, as the law only requires action to prevent risks; if there is no risk, then there is no problem to solve. Instead, the government is introducing a system where the self-employed will be unsure of their legal position - and this confusion could be deadly. 'Given that the most dangerous industries all have a high proportion of self-employed people in them (agriculture, construction etc) anything that confuses the situation is a recipe for disaster,' he warns. 'The government will say that these people in dangerous industries are not exempted and if you ask who is exempted they come up with examples like a novelist who works in their own home. Yes, but the novelist in their own home is only covered now if they put someone at risk. That will not change. What will change is that hundreds of thousands of other people simply will not know whether they are covered.' Robertson concludes: 'This stupid and dangerous proposal is being done in the name of reducing burdens. How it is going to remove any burdens is beyond me. It does not actually change the situation for those who genuinely do not pose a risk to others and only creates complete confusion for all the other self-employed. Instead it is an ideological move from a government that is solely interested in deregulation, or even worse, the illusion of deregulation, regardless of the cost. No-one is claiming that it will do anything to improve health and safety and it certainly is not going to simplify anything.' TUC general secretary Frances O'Grady said: 'Taking the protection of health and safety laws away from some of the UK's many self-employed workers - who are more than twice as likely as employees to be killed at work - will not help businesses nor grow our economy one bit. It's a recipe for confusion as many people will now be unsure about their rights and responsibilities. The result is likely to be an increase in workplace accidents.'
