The TUC has warned business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng that workers’ safety is being put at risk because of confusion created by guidance announced last month by prime minister Boris Johnson on Covid-19 and workplace risk assessments.
Johnson’s Living with Covid plan was presented to parliament on 21 February and outlined that, from 1 April, employers would no longer have to explicitly consider Covid-19 in their risk assessments.
However, the trade union body has argued this change conflicts with the statutory duty employers have to “make a suitable and sufficient assessment of the risks to the health and safety of his employees to which they are exposed whilst they are at work”, as outlined in the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations reg.3(1). It has written to Kwarteng to warn him of the consequences of this “dangerous confusion”.
The TUC has said this regulation requires any risk to health to be incorporated within a risk assessment, and this must therefore include the ongoing risks working people face from contracting Covid-19, including subsequently developing long Covid.
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TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady said: “Ministers are sowing dangerous confusion on Covid safety at work. Longstanding rules on workplace safety clearly indicate that employers should consider Covid risks, but the government has sent out a conflicting message. And this may leave working people facing risks that could and should be prevented.
“We want ministers to clear up this confusion by advising employers that they must still consider Covid-19 in workplace risk assessments. And we are advising workplace health and safety reps that they should continue to request specific information on Covid-19 when they are consulted on risk assessments,” she added.
