Asked by: John Whitby (Labour - Derbyshire Dales)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps her Department is taking to improve workplace health and safety protections for farm and agricultural workers.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
In line with its published Strategy 2022 to 2032, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) focuses on the most effective and efficient ways to improve the health and safety performance of all industries in Great Britain, including farming.
Between 2018 and 2024, in partnership with the industry, HSE ran a campaign to offer farmers free health and safety training which was then followed up by an inspection to a selection of those farms invited to take the training.
HSE will continue to visit farms where they have intelligence to suggest risk is not being managed adequately and investigate incidents in line with their published selection criteria.
As well as appropriate site visits, HSE continues to engage with farming through a variety of other methods including delivering industry talks; webinars and presentations; engaging with the media and publishing targeted articles for farmers; producing industry notifications which include safety messaging; and producing awareness raising campaigns. It also produces a range of freely available guidance to enable farmers to comply with health and safety law and keep themselves and others safe.
HSE’s commitment to working with the agricultural industry through stakeholders such as Britain’s Farm Safety Partnerships (FSPs) remains strong. The most recent activity includes supporting the FSPs with a campaign on safe use of quad bikes.
Asked by: John Whitby (Labour - Derbyshire Dales)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether she plans to improve employer compliance with statutory sick pay obligations.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Government believes that enforcement of Statutory Sick Pay is vital in ensuring that employees receive the correct amount of Statutory Sick Pay they are due. Guidance to both employers and employees is provided on Gov.uk. HMRC also operates a dispute resolution process through its Statutory Payments Dispute Team for individuals who believe they have been wrongly denied Statutory Sick Pay.
However, the Government wants to go further in supporting employers and improving compliance with Statutory Sick Pay obligations. That is why it will be included in the Fair Work Agency which will bring together existing state enforcement functions into one place, so employment rights, including Statutory Sick Pay, are enforced more effectively and efficiently. The Fair Work Agency will provide better support to businesses to comply with the law and will also work closely with the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (ACAS) which already provides guidance for employers and workers.