Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, pursuant to the Answer on 27 March 2023 to Question 169324 on Health: Working Hours, what plans her Department has to (a) ensure health protections for night-time workers in addition to those in the Working Time Regulations, (b) review the existing Working Time Regulations to ensure they are sufficient in ensuring health protections for night workers and (c) set out plans to institute mandatory periodic reviews of night shift workers to ensure their wellbeing while in that employment.

The Working Time Regulations provide specific protections to night workers. Before someone starts working at night, they must be offered a free health assessment to see if they are fit to work nights before they become a night worker and on a regular basis after that. A record of this must be kept by the employer. Employers must also make sure that night-time workers do not work more than an average of 8 hours in a 24-hour period. Employers can make collective or workforce agreements to change or exclude this limit.