Thanks to both Steve and Neil for raising this. The Lofstedt review
last November summarised its recommended approach to civil liability
like this:

'regulatory provisions that impose strict liability
should be reviewed by June 2013 and either qualified with ‘reasonably
practicable’
where strict liability is not absolutely necessary or amended to
prevent civil liability
from attaching to a breach of those provisions.'

This contains a bit of both of Neil's possibilities, but arguably goes
further by removing civil liability from some of the provisions.

The review itself did not look particularly heavy on legal input:

http://www.dwp.gov.uk/docs/lofstedt-report.pdf

All the best

Jenny

Jenny Steele
University of York




On 11 September 2012 02:58, Neil Foster <Neil.Foster@newcastle.edu.au> wrote:
> Dear Steve;
> Thanks, very interesting for those us interested in the breach of statutory
> duty area! I agree with the comment at the linked blog, strict liability in
> this area has been around for well over a century, and this is a bad
> decision. What will be interesting will be to see how they do it. Liability
> under the HSW Regs & associated regs is only strict for civil actions
> because that is the way that the criminal provisions are worded. Presumably
> they could take one of two broad approaches- (1) treat civil BSD liability
> separately to the criminal obligations, and somehow provide that a civil BSD
> action will be subject to a defence of "reasonable care" or the like; or (2)
> redefine the standard required under a whole raft of criminal provisions. Of
> the two bad options I think (1) would be the least bad, because at least
> that would not water down the standard of care required of employers etc
> under the criminal law. But I suspect they will tend towards option (2) and
> water down safety requirements across the board. That is going to require
> some interesting drafting.
> Regards
> Neil
>
> On 11/09/2012, at 5:53 AM, Hedley, Steve wrote:
>
> Perhaps largely of UK interest, but possibly broader:
>
> "The Government announced today that it will be introducing legislation
> before Parliament as early as next month amending the Health and Safety at
> Work Act to abolish strict liability for breaches of Health and Safety
> regulations. If the legislation is passed, employers will only be liable
> where fault is proved ..."
>
> [Andrew Spencer, piBlawg, 10 September]
>
> Steve Hedley
> UCC
>
>
> Neil Foster
> Associate Professor in Law,
> Newcastle Law School;
> Assistant Dean, Teaching & Learning,
> Faculty of Business & Law
> University of Newcastle
> Callaghan NSW 2308
> AUSTRALIA
> ph 02 4921 7430
> fax 02 4921 6931
>
> http://www.newcastle.edu.au/staff/profile/neil.foster.html
>
> http://works.bepress.com/neil_foster/
>
> http://simeonnetwork.org/testimonies/119/Neil_Foster
>
>
>
>