Parliament passes Act to extend fines

Employers will face potential imprisonment for nearly all health and safety offences from 16 January 2009, when the Health and Safety (Offences) Act1 comes into force.

The Act also extends the maximum fine available to magistrates to £20,000 for most types of convictions.

The Act, which applies throughout the UK, was introduced as a Private Member’s Bill by Keith Hill MP, and received royal assent on 16 October. Twelve days later, the HSE revealed that average fines imposed by courts were lower in 2007/08 than in 2006/07, falling to £12,896 from £15,370 per offence prosecuted by the HSE. If fines of £100,000 and over are excluded – to give a more accurate picture of everyday sentencing – the average falls to £7,809 from £8,723.

There are 17 main types of offences under the HSW Act, and the 2008 Act will:

  • allow magistrates to imprison offenders for 13 types (currently they may do so only for two);
  • increase the maximum prison term available to magistrates from six to 12 months (although this provision will not take effect until ss.154(1) and 281(5) of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 come into force, and no date has been set for that yet);
  • allow magistrates to impose a maximum penalty of £20,000 for 13 types of offences (currently all but three offences are limited to £5,000);
  • increase the number of offences that are imprisonable on indictment (in higher courts) from three to 12 (although the maximum sentence remains two years); and
  • allow two of the five offences that are currently triable only in magistrates’ courts to be tried on indictment.
However welcome the Act, it is unlikely to increase either the number or length of imprisonments significantly; magistrates can currently use prison for the more serious breaches – HSW Act general duties and contravening a prohibition notice – but have, like judges, been reluctant to do so. The effects of the Act are more likely to be felt in increased fines for breaches of health and safety Regulations (where the maximum will rise from £5,000 to £20,000), and in more cases being tried in magistrates’ courts. And, although magistrates and judges rarely sentence offenders to anywhere near the maximum penalty, there is some evidence that a rise in the maximum results in a rise in the average. A full analysis of the Act and the enforcement statistics for 2007/08 will appear in the next HSB.      

1 “Health and Safety (Offences) Act 2008” (PDF format, 87.7K) (external website).