Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what plans her Department has to encourage employers to undertake covid-19 health and safety risk assessments for severely immunocompromised employees.

Answered by Chloe Smith

COVID-19 remains a public health issue. There is no longer a requirement for every business to consider COVID-19 in their risk assessment or have COVID-19 control measures in place. The United Kingdom Health Security Agency has published guidance on reducing the spread of respiratory infections, including COVID-19, in the workplace.

For people in England who are immunosuppressed (including employees), the Department of Health and Social Care has published guidance entitled: ‘COVID-19: guidance for people whose immune system means they are at higher risk’.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps she has taken to increase health and safety enforcement in response to the omicron variant of covid-19.

Answered by Chloe Smith

In 2021/22 the Government provided an additional £14m to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) to continue its’ programme of spot checks on compliance, to ensure businesses are protecting workers from COVID-19. The focus of the compliance checks is reviewed and adapted in line with Government advice and the different approaches taken in England, Scotland and Wales; most recently, in response to the omicron variant.

Businesses must still control the risks and review and update their risk assessments, taking into the account their statutory obligations, the public health guidance in their own nation, and the requirement to consult their workers.

Since the start of the pandemic, HSE has carried out more than 380,000 interventions to check how businesses are implementing measures to reduce transmission of COVID-19 at their sites. Where contraventions are identified and to ensure standards are being met, inspectors continue to take enforcement action, in line with HSE’s published Enforcement Policy Statement

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to produce guidance for employers, to accompany the lifting of COVID-19 related restrictions on 19 July, about the health and safety of employees who are immunocompromised or immunosuppressed and therefore not protected by the COVID-19 vaccine.

Answered by Baroness Stedman-Scott

Throughout the pandemic, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has encouraged businesses to manage risks in order to reduce the transmission of COVID-19 in workplaces through the provision of detailed guidance. HSE published updated guidance on 19 July - Keeping workplaces safe as coronavirus (COVID-19) restrictions are removed (which can be found at https://www.hse.gov.uk/coronavirus/roadmap-further-guidance.htm) - to reflect changes as a result of the lifting of coronavirus restrictions in England.

HSE does not consider vaccination of employees to be a workplace control. Businesses must control the risks and review and update their risk assessment to reduce the transmission of COVID-19 by providing adequate ventilation, regular cleaning and frequent handwashing. Businesses can also continue to reduce the risk of transmission during the pandemic by taking measures to limit the number of people their workers are in contact with, and UK government guidance on working safely (which can be found at https://www.gov.uk/guidance/working-safely-during-covid-19) provides further information and advice on these measures covering a range of different types of work.

Employers’ health and safety responsibilities include taking reasonable steps to protect all workers and others from the risk of transmission of COVID-19 in connection with their work activities. As these control measures apply to all workers, regardless of their relative levels of vulnerability or the potential outcome, there are no expectations of additional control measures for Clinically Extremely Vulnerable (CEV) workers or the need for individual risk assessments.

HSE advises employers to have individual discussions with their CEV employees about any workplace concerns and understand what is in place to protect them. There is specific guidance on the HSE website to support employers to do this https://www.hse.gov.uk/coronavirus/working-safely/protect-people.htm