My Lords, perhaps I should start by saying that the point which has just been raised by the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Hudnall, will be dealt with later on today, so we will return to that question.
The purpose of Clause 1 is to remove the requirements of Section 3(2) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 from self-employed persons except those on a prescribed list of activities. The effect of Clause 1 will be to exempt self-employed persons from the requirements of Section 3(2), except those conducting undertakings prescribed by the Secretary of State in regulations.
As things stand, Section 3(2) imposes a duty on every self-employed person to protect themselves, and others, from risks to their health and safety, regardless of the type of activity they are undertaking. This means that duties are currently imposed on self-employed persons who undertake activities with little or no risk of harm to themselves and others. For example, a dressmaker, accountant or academic conducting commissioned research, as I used to do, working at home currently has duties under this section.
This proposal emanates from an independent review of health and safety legislation undertaken by Professor Ragnar Löfstedt in 2011. He recommended that self-employed persons be exempt from health and safety law where their work activities pose no potential risk of harm to others. One of the cases for doing so, he said, is so that Britain follows a similar approach to other EU countries—a comparison that may be welcome to some and possibly not welcome to others. The Government accepted this recommendation and a clause was included in the draft deregulation Bill.
In 2013, the Bill was subject to scrutiny by a pre-legislative scrutiny Joint Committee chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Rooker. Evidence presented by interested parties suggested that the clause, as originally drafted, could be confusing for self-employed persons to assess whether the law applied to them or not. The clause was therefore amended in the light of this evidence to make it clearer to the self-employed when the law will apply to them and when they will be exempt.
As a result of the change, only those self-employed persons conducting an undertaking prescribed by the Secretary of State in regulations will continue to have duties under Section 3(2). Undertakings will be prescribed if one of the following four criteria is met: first, there are high numbers of self-employed in a particular industry and high rates of injuries and/or fatalities—for example, in agriculture; secondly, there is a significant risk to members of the public—for example, in fairgrounds; thirdly, there is the potential for mass fatalities—for example, in the use of explosives or other dangerous equipment; fourthly, there is a European obligation to retain the general duty on self-employed persons—for example, in construction.
I hope that by now all noble Lords will have had an opportunity to consider a draft of the prescribing regulations, which has been produced in light of these four criteria. I am sure we can all agree that those self-employed undertaking work in the building industry should remain within the scope of health and safety law. Under the draft regulations, noble Lords will see that this will indeed continue to be the case. Builders, for example, will not be exempt under this proposal. Similarly, gas fitters and boiler engineers for obvious reasons will not be exempt. The risks posed when
working with gas are recognised to be high and so the duties owed by a self-employed person who undertakes these activities will be maintained.
The draft set of regulations for the prescribed undertakings has been designed to strike a careful balance between the need to free self-employed persons from the perception that health and safety law places unnecessary burdens on them while still providing important protections in the law to those who require them. The Government have also tabled an amendment accepting the recommendation of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee to change the parliamentary procedure for these regulations from negative to affirmative. This will allow Parliament fully to scrutinise the regulations.
To ease transition to the new system and minimise familiarisation costs, the prescribed list relies on existing legal definitions, where possible. The clarity of the definitions in the list of prescribed undertakings in the draft regulations was the subject of an eight-week public consultation during the summer. The responses are being analysed by the HSE and will be published shortly. The draft list is available on the HSE website, and to assist the House, I will place a copy in the Library today. I hope that this will help in our discussions.
Further to aid the transition, the Health and Safety Executive is producing guidance targeted at self-employed persons and others to assist them in understanding the proposed changes to the law. It will also signpost them to existing guidance which explains in practical terms what self-employed persons need to do to comply with the relevant law. There is, for example, extensive guidance made publicly available by the HSE about managing health and safety in construction. This provides additional information about the definition of construction work, which is one of the activities intended to be prescribed. Detailed guidance exists for a majority of the other prescribed activities and, where it does not, the Health and Safety Executive will ensure that additional guidance is produced to support this legislative change. I beg to move Amendment 1 and propose that Clause 1 should stand part of the Bill.