Academics highlight health and safety deregulation


The UK is leading the way on “business-friendly” state reduction of regulation, according to Professor David Walters of Cardiff University. And he says that the whole of Europe has fallen victim to varying degrees of “better regulation”. 


Even in states not hit by the recent financial crisis, he has found that there has been a retreat from previous comparatively strict standards. Walters was speaking at an Institute of Employment Rights (IER) conference in London last month, which also heard from Professor Steve Tombs from the Open University. 


Tombs set out a series of statistics demonstrating a stark decline in local authority inspections and prosecutions over recent years. He also condemned the Primary Authority Scheme, which allows firms with sites in more than one local authority area to select a council to negotiate a “partnership” deal with, placing them under pressure to relax already minimum standards in order to attract and keep “customer” firms.


A summary of the conference and links to presentations is available at: www.ier.org.uk/blog/health-and-safety-update-2016-london