The government’s health and safety watchdog has failed to shut down any workplaces that put employees at risk of coronavirus even though there have been over 3,500 outbreaks at work since the start of the pandemic, the Observer has discovered.
Analysis of the Health and Safety Executive’s (HSE) enforcement database reveals there have been no Covid-related prohibition notices, which allow inspectors to immediately halt activity in workplaces deemed injurious or damaging to health, since last March.
This comes after the government defended the HSE’s decision not to place Covid in its highest risk category in response to a parliamentary question from Labour’s shadow employment minster Andy McDonald.
Employment minister Mims Davies last week said Covid had been classified as “significant” rather than “serious”, as it “best supports inspectors in making sensible, proportionate regulatory decisions”. She added that effects of Covid were “non-permanent or reversible, non-progressive and any disability is temporary” for the working population as a whole.
McDonald said he was not satisfied with the explanation he had received from the government or the HSE. “It’s undoubted that citizens of our country, who are of working age, have gone out to work and lost their lives,” he said. “How you could describe Covid contracted in the workplace as being not serious but merely significant is absolutely beyond me.”
Figures released by Public Health England last week show there had been 3,549 outbreaks in workplaces, including offices, factories and construction sites, since July, and there were 100 outbreaks last week, despite the country still being in lockdown, with only essential workers supposed to be travelling to work.
The lower-risk designation appears to be hampering enforcement activity, with some inspectors claiming it restricts their ability to issue prohibition notices and mount prosecutions. No employers have been prosecuted for Covid safety failings since the start of the pandemic, according to the TUC.
An experienced inspector at the HSE, who wished to remain anonymous, told the Observer that inspectors were unable to halt work activities exposing workers to coronavirus because the virus was only classed as a “significant” threat.
“It makes it very difficult for an inspector to write what we call a prohibition notice,” he said. “HSE internal instructions have said they would be very reluctant to support an inspector who did [serve a prohibition notice].”
The inspector said some HSE staff felt frustrated by government pressure to keep many workplaces open and by the failure to take into account the risks to workers’ families.
He added that inspectors had been told they could leave crowded workplaces without social distancing if they themselves felt threatened, but could do little to stop people working immediately. “Currently HSE is saying ‘walk off site’ [if you feel unsafe], but you can’t do anything to stop the work,” he said.
McDonald called for urgent review of the classification. “Inspectors are responding to Covid with one hand tied behind their back,” he said. “They are without access to the powers they need to take action where necessary.”
The TUC said it was concerned the lower-risk classification was allowing employers to get away with exposing workers to avoidable threats.
“Over 10,000 workers have died from Covid, and many others have long Covid, with longterm health problems. It’s the most serious workplace safety hazard in a generation,” said Shelly Asquith, TUC health and safety policy officer. “It’s hard to understand why Covid is not classified as ‘serious’ given the number of workplace clusters.”
The HSE has been inundated with Covid-related safety complaints during the pandemic. It has dealt with over 100,000 Covid cases, with nearly 25,000 complaints coming from workers and the public in January.
Although business secretary Alok Sharma made an extra £14m available to the HSE to recruit call centre staff and rehire former inspectors in May, it does not begin to make up for a decade worth of cuts totalling more than £100m.
An HSE spokesperson said it was “wholly inaccurate” to suggest the organisation was not treating the pandemic seriously. They said the HSE would “prosecute where appropriate”, but stressed it was “facilitating swift responses by employers through direct persuasion, advice and reprimand, not slower legal proceedings.”
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