Health and safety rules to be axed

Between a third and half of all health and safety regulations in the workplace will be axed under Government plans to reduce burdens on business.

One million self-employed people will enjoy a huge reduction in paperwork when they are made exempt from health and safety rules.

Council health and safety inspectors will also be kept in check in order to reduce the red tape burden on companies which is estimated to cost them hundreds of millions of pounds annually.

The radical reforms, which include scrapping a law which holds employers responsible for almost any accident involving their staff, are proposed in a report by Professor Ragnar Lofstedt, from King’s College London.

Employment minister Chris Grayling will use the report to urge the European Union to use a 2013 review to cut the number of health and safety directives which apply to Britain.

Mr Grayling said: “I start from the principle that health and safety is about saving lives and stopping serious injury in the workplace. It is not about interfering in the running of decent businesses. 

“We want to put greater responsibility on the individual for their own conduct, rather than assuming that the employer has to nanny them in all circumstances.”

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