My Lords, in moving Amendment 28ZDC I shall also speak to Amendment 28ZDD.
Amendment 28ZDC is a probing amendment designed to focus on the issue of health and safety and the split responsibility between the HSE and local authorities. This was another issue raised by Professor Löfstedt in his independent review of health and safety legislation. The HSE is the national regulatory body responsible for promoting better health and safety and setting the parameters for enforcement activity, but enforcement and inspection activity is split between the HSE and local authorities. The HSE is responsible for traditionally high-risk places and local authorities for those that have less risk.
As Professor Löfstedt’s review points out, there have been many good examples of joint working and co-ordination between the HSE and local authorities, including joint inspections and flexible warranting. An engagement of primary authorities in this process certainly enhances outcomes. Professor Löfstedt identifies that, despite improvements, there remain inconsistencies across local authorities’ implementation, with some local authorities assigning a lower priority to health and safety than, say, food safety. He also drew attention to the problem that the premises that are considered relatively low-risk within the HSE areas of responsibility are now not subject to proactive inspection at all as a result of the government edict, but may nevertheless be riskier than workplaces falling within the local authority orbit. That is accentuated by the fact that local authorities undertake more inspections than the HSE—nearly 200,000 to the some 33,000 of the HSE—although the latter is of course to reduce.
With greater emphasis on HSE responsibilities and engagement, the primary authority route would be one means of improving the situation, as this probing amendment suggests. However, the professor has a more radical proposition, which is to have a single body directing health and safety across all workplaces, and that this responsibility should pass to the HSE. Can the Minister offer a government view on that proposition?
Amendment 28ZDD touches on the extent to which local authorities may exercise their inspection functions outside the primary authority plan and co-operate in providing feedback. Clause 60 makes following the plan mandatory unless prior written permission has been given. The LGA argument is that this mandate is unnecessary and that encouragement to co-operate will increase the effectiveness of inspection plans. We will hear more of this in a moment.
Our amendment is an attempt—perhaps not a very refined one—to find a middle way. Can the Minister outline circumstances in which the Government consider it reasonable for a local authority to seek and be granted an easement from the inspection plan provided by the primary authority? The impact assessment states that 5% of primary authorities currently use inspection plans, which is a surprisingly low percentage. What are the Government’s estimates of the likely increase in this percentage in the period ahead? I beg to move.
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