Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that clinically vulnerable people cannot be required to attend work by their employers if their work can be done remotely, during the covid-19 outbreak.

Government guidance on shielding and protecting those who are clinically extremely vulnerable from COVID-19 has been updated to clearly state that this group of people are strongly advised to work from home. If they are unable to do so they should not attend work for this period of restriction. The full guidance is available on GOV.UK.

The Government’s safer working guidance makes clear what employers need to do to support clinically vulnerable and clinically extremely vulnerable workers. In all instances, employers must carry out a workplace risk assessment and take action in line with this guidance, which can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/working-safely-during-coronavirus-covid-19/the-visitor-economy.

Employers who dismiss an employee because they are, or have been, self-isolating, may be liable for unfair or automatically unfair dismissal. This will depend on all the circumstances of the case. Individuals, including those of higher clinical vulnerability, or those who live with someone in that category, may have valid reasons to believe that attending work would create a serious and imminent danger to their health, or to the health of the person they live with. In such cases, it could be automatically unfair to dismiss that individual for staying at home.