Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, if he will publish a risk analysis of the potential effect easing the covid-19 lockdown on local businesses.

The Government has published guidance to help businesses make their workplaces as safe as possible to allow employees to return. This requires a risk assessment to be carried out, in line with health and safety legislation.

The guidance was developed with business representatives, unions, Public Health England and the Health and Safety Executive to consider what might be needed to adapt workplaces in order to minimise the risk of transmission as much as possible while accommodating a return to work at the appropriate time – to make them safer places in the current climate. The variation in types of local business and working environments mean that risk assessments are more appropriately carried out by the business itself.

If businesses do not take action to comply with the relevant legislation and guidance, they could face a range of actions from the Health and Safety Executive or the local authority to improve control of workplace risks. These actions include the provision of specific advice through to issuing enforcement notices to help secure improvements with the guidance.