Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will hold discussions with the Health and Safety Executive on the potential merits of taking steps encourage employers to (a) organise regular hearing tests, (b) distribute adequate personal hearing protectors and (c) implement other measures to help prevent occupational hearing loss.

Duties on employers are well established in the Control of Noise at Work Regulations 2005, which require employers to:

a) Carry out hearing tests regularly by a competent person (health surveillance) when there may be a risk to their employee’s hearing, and undertake protective measures based on the results, and

b) Provide adequate personal hearing protection where noise exposure cannot be eliminated or controlled at source.

Health and Safety Executive (HSE) provides guidance and tools to help employers understand their obligations through its website, and regularly engages stakeholders to promote noise controls and ensuring hearing protection is fit for purpose in terms of its condition and specific use.

HSE enforces these regulations and is conducting a long-term programme of targeted inspections of higher risk workplaces, forming a key element of HSE’s Protecting People and Places strategy to reduce work-related ill-health in the workplace.