ABSTRACT
This Act is the major piece of health and safety legislation in Great Britain. It provides the legal framework to promote, stimulate and encourage high standards. Previous Acts had concentrated on prescription of solutions within the law; a series of Factories Acts in particular had raised standards progressively since 1833 by stipulating what measures needed to be taken in factories, and although the legislative base was gradually widened to include other kinds of premises, modern work practices and businesses were no longer fully covered by legislation by the third quarter of the 20th century. Consultations carried out by the Robens Committee between 1970 and 1972 produced the basis of a new type of law – one which placed responsibility on employers and employees together to produce their own solutions to health and safety problems, subject to the test of reasonable practicability (see Part 4 Section 3).
