Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment she has made of the potential merits for employee wellbeing of introducing a maximum working temperature in work places.

Workplace temperature is one of the potential hazards that employers should address to meet their legal obligations under health and safety law.

The Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992 place a legal obligation on employers to provide a ‘reasonable’ temperature in indoor workplaces. Detailed guidance for employers on workplace temperature and thermal comfort is available on the Health and Safety Executive’s (HSE) website. This guidance includes information on how to undertake a thermal comfort assessment and specific measures that can be taken to improve thermal comfort.

Responsibility to make workplaces safe and healthy lies with employers, who should consult with employees or their representatives to establish sensible means to cope with high temperatures.

No maximum workplace temperature exists because every workplace is different. No meaningful upper limit can be imposed because in many indoor workplaces extreme temperature is not seasonal, but is created by work activity, for example, in a glass works or foundry. In such environments factors other than air temperature, including radiant temperature, humidity and air velocity, become more significant and the interaction between them becomes more complex with rising temperatures. However, it is still possible to work safely provided appropriate controls are present.

HSE regularly reviews and, where necessary, refreshes the guidance published on its website.