Red light for red tape

Posted on Friday 1 January 2010

Flying in the face of almost every pollsters’ forecasts the Conservative Party defied the odds by winning an overall majority of seats in the Commons.

Within days of being elected, the Tories vowed to focus a great deal of attention on encouraging enterprise. What, at first, seemed to be a positive message for UK industry, is in reality building on measures first introduced during the previous term. When the Deregulation Bill was passed through for Royal Assent back in March of this year, the Coalition sought to reduce the amount of ‘red tape’ it cited as being too burdensome for SMEs.

While the elections were still taking place BSIF chief executive, Alan Murray, had already expressed his concerns with the Deregulation Bill, in particular plans to exempt self employed workers from section 3 (2) of the Health and Safety at Work Act of 1974 (with the exception of some on a ‘defined list’). This, warned Murray, could send a misleading message and create unnecessary confusion. For example, many self employed workers may assume that they were now exempt from adhering to the Health & Safety at Work Act.

It’s not the first time concerns have been raised. At a parliamentary debate in February 2014, the House declined to give a Second Reading to the Deregulation Bill, partly due to concerns with health and safety issues. The House said the Bill failed to recognise ‘the social, economic and environmental benefits of effective regulation and contains a number of extremely damaging proposals including: the watering down of safety protections for employees that will leave workers at greater risk of injury, ill-health and abuse’ and the ‘imposition of a growth duty on non-economic regulators such as Natural England and the Health and Safety Executive, which is irresponsible and risks undermining their core roles’. Furthermore, the House believed that the Bill represented ‘an obsession with GDP growth at any cost which is not in the public interest’.

Nevertheless, The Deregulation Bill received royal assent on 26 March 2015 and, in doing so, did little to diminish the negativity of the epithet ‘red tape’, an all encompassing soubriquet that reinforces the public’s misconception of health and safety as a burden.

Cut to May 2015 and the newly elected Government has laid its cards on the table with the new Business Secretary, Sajid Javid, pledging in his first speech to cut £10billion of ‘red tape’ over the next five years. The Enterprise Bill has been unveiled as a platform to boost small businesses’ chances of growth in the UK and overseas.

There are still too many industry stakeholders who see health and safety regulations as burdensome rather than beneficial to the lives of the UK workforce. Freed from the constraints of horse-trading with a Coalition partner, the newly elected Government now has the opportunity to help change this sentiment and encourage businesses to change the negative perspective of ‘elf & safety’.

It’s still early days, but if the Business Secretary’s comments are to be taken at face value then they seem to reinforce the BSIF’s concerns. Javid has already vowed to remove what he describes as ‘heavy handed’ regulators off firms’ backs, while Small Business Minister, Anna Soubry, added that the Government wants to identify and scrap ‘needless burdens at home and in Europe’.

Educating, advising and sharing industry knowledge is crucial if the public’s perception of health and safety is to change. But if the message coming from the top is that health & safety is a burden, then perhaps it is at Government level that this transfer of knowledge needs to be targeted.