Lifting the Lockdown: Workplace Safety Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities
Maria Eagle
Main Page: Maria Eagle (Labour - Garston and Halewood)Department Debates - View all Maria Eagle's debates with the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities
Lifting the Lockdown: Workplace Safety
Maria Eagle Excerpts(3 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
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Paul Scully
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising the important issue of those people who are most vulnerable in this situation. The guidance already sets out the steps that individuals living with shielded and vulnerable people should take to keep them safe. Where the Health and Safety Executive identifies employers who are not taking appropriate action to ensure that workers in the shielded category can follow the NHS advice to self-isolate for the period specified, it will consider taking a range of actions to improve the control of risks in the workplace.
Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab) [V]
Does the Minister agree that to prevent a second wave of covid-19, employees will have to be as safe as possible when they return to the workplace, that employers have a statutory obligation to achieve this and that they owe their employees a duty of care? How can asking employers merely to consider non-binding guidance possibly help them to achieve these legal obligations? Is he really saying that workplaces should continue to operate where safe working practices cannot be achieved? That is what his guidance seems to be saying.