Workplace Report September 2019

Health & safety - HSE Monitor

Labour protection plan


The Labour Party has set out its plans for a new and unified Workers’ Protection Agency (WPA). 


Under a Labour government, the new body will be “tasked with enforcing the law and ensuring all workers receive the rights and protections that they are entitled to, given extensive power to inspect workplaces and bring prosecutions and civil proceedings on workers’ behalf”. There will also be “tougher penalties for bad employers” that break the law. 


Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and shadow minister for labour Laura Pidcock set out details of the new body to delegates at the annual TUC Congress in Brighton earlier this month. 


Under the plans, the current workplace health and safety regulator, the Health and Safety Executive, “would be folded into the WPA as the new unified enforcement agency,” a party spokesperson confirmed. 


“Labour will also set up a Royal Commission on health and safety to comprehensively update health and safety legislation,” she added.

https://labour.org.uk/press/corbyn-pidcock-announce-ministry-employment-rights-workers-protection-agency

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/sep/10/jeremy-corbyn-extension-workers-rights-labour-tuc-congress