Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether any (a) public and (b) private sector employer has been reported to the Health and Safety Executive for failure to abide by health and safety legislation during the Covid 19 pandemic.

The Health and Safety at Work etc Act (HSWA) 1974 is the primary piece of legislation covering occupational health and safety in Great Britain. It sets out the general duties which employers have towards employees and members of the public, employees have to themselves and to each other and certain self-employed have towards themselves and others.

HSWA applies equally across all workplaces in all industry sectors and does not distinguish between either public or private sector duty-holders. As such, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) would not routinely differentiate or record this information.

Reports received by HSE are generally in the form of a ‘concern’. These can be in relation to any health and safety issue in the workplace and can be submitted via HSE’s online reporting portal.

Between the 1^st April 2020 and the 31st March 2022, this being the timeframe of the pandemic prior to HSE returning to business as usual, HSE handled over 70,000 concerns about health and safety in the workplace.

However, not all of these concerns were in relation to a failure to abide by health and safety legislation, some were requests for general health and safety advice, support, and guidance. This data has been published in the HSE Annual Report 2020/21 and 2021/22 respectively and is not Covid specific.