Development of workplace health and safety started fairly recently
Minimum legal workplace health and safety standards and expectations have been around pretty much since 1833. This is when HM Factory Inspectorate was formed under the Factories Act 1833. Its main duty was to ensure the enforcement of factory inspections to help prevent injury and the overworking of children in the textile industry. The Mines Inspectorate was formed in 1843 providing a similar enforcement framework for the mining industry in the UK.
Many years have passed and we often hear comments such as ‘…health and safety legislation is a burden on all businesses, it prevents people doing their job, so much paperwork and the red tape barriers we have to overcome are ridiculous…’ . A sentence that has been paraphrased and probably used ever since 1833. However, the development of workplace health and safety started relatively recently.
Aberfan disaster and the National Coal Board
The 21st October 2016 marked the 50th anniversary of the Aberfan disaster. Aberfan, a small mining village in the heart of south Wales, was tragically rocked by a land slip that sent tonnes of mining debris down a mountainside and into a primary school. Subsequently, killing a generation of children and a number of adults.
This horrendous tragedy was a result of many years of waste mining material being tipped on to a nearby mountainside. Many local residents had complained to, and raised concerns with the National Coal Board regarding the dangers that were simply ignored and dismissed. It was argued that the waste material had been tipped on top of mountain springs and a stream.
This then, eventually saturated the tip and triggered the slip onto the village below, causing the deadliest mining incident in the UK ever. The coal board were blamed for extreme negligence, however, their then chairman, Lord Robens, made misleading statements that tried to shift the blame. He said it was an unpredictable natural disaster, much to the anger of the residents who had been campaigning for many years.
Absence of a tipping policy
An inquiry ensued and lasted a record 76 days with interviews, examinations and testimonials. Lord Robens appeared in the last few days of the inquiry in which he eventually conceded the fault of the National Coal Board. The inquiry echoed this in its final statement citing the NCB’s “total absence of (a) tipping policy.”
The statement mentioned that there was no legislation dealing with the safety of tips in any country, including the UK, except for Germany and South Africa.
In 1969 the Government framed new legislation to remedy the absence of laws and regulations governing mine and quarry waste tips and spoil heaps. The Mines and Quarries (Tips) Act 1969 was implemented to make provisions to prevent disused tips becoming a danger to the public. This was additional legislation to The Mines and Quarries Act 1954 which made no reference to tips.
General duty on employers
The Aberfan disaster at the time was not required to be formally reported to HM Inspectorate of Mines and Quarries (the enforcing agency). This was because it did not happen on a colliery and no mine workers were injured or killed. It is clear that health and safety legislation used to be very reactive.
A different format was laid down to address the problem of health and safety legislation being reactive. The different format established a catch-all general duty on employers “to conduct his undertaking in such a way to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, that persons not in his employment who may be affected thereby are not thereby exposed to risks to their health or safety.”
Modernising health and safety legislation in the UK
This statement addressed the recommendations of a committee set up by Baroness Barbara Castle to look at modernising UK health and safety legislation. And the chairman of the committee…? One Lord Robens!
In due course, the committee then produced the Robens’ Report. This championed the idea of self-regulation by employers and eventually led to the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 and also the creation of the Health and Safety Executive. Bravo!! Qdos can help you with your workplace health and safety legislation.
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