Ray London-Smith, who has been fighting for the rights of accident victims at Wirral solicitors RMNJ for more than 25 years, looks at the impact on workers’ compensation rights of plans to cut health and safety ‘red tape’...

Do you feel safe at work? These days you would expect the answer to be yes straight away, given what we hear in the press about the huge burden placed on industry by laws coming out of Europe.

But work can still be a risky place, especially as employers are forced to try to economise as a result of the recession and rising overheads. New government plans could encourage this attitude further.

Laws developed since Victorian times mean that all employers have to take sufficient steps to protect you at work and to make sure that the way they ask you to do your job has been properly assessed as being safe.

At times they are under a statutory strict liability – when providing work equipment, for example – and will be automatically liable if it fails and causes injury.

But the Government is committed to making a huge change and to reverse protection for workers developed over decades.

The Government plans to remove the simple protection that a breach of a statutory provision for the protection of an employee will not guarantee liability in a claim for injury, but that the injured person will need to prove that his employer was negligent.

As an example, in the case of one worker killed at work when using a lifting hoist which failed, his widow was able to secure compensation for the loss of her husband due to the defect, even though the hoist had not failed before. Under new government plans, she would never have been able to show that her husband’s employer was negligent and she would have received nothing.

This change did not appear in any political party manifesto, and there has been no public consultation. It is being slipped through as a simple amendment to the ‘Enterprise Bill’. Although the amendment was rejected by the House of Lords, the Commons reinstated it last week before referring the bill back to the Lords for its final stages.

If implemented, people injured at work through no fault of their own will have a reduced chance, or no chance, of recovering compensation for injury, and the early support of a specialist work claims solicitor will be more important than ever.

RMNJ is proud to be a firm accredited by the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers and dedicated to fighting for the rights of injured people. APIL corporate accredited firms meet specific criteria, as evidence of their experience and dedication to client care. RMNJ accident solicitors are always happy to provide free initial advice to accident victims. Simply call 0151 647 0000, and we will provide a free reply to any accident claim question submitted to ask@rmnj.co.uk.