Melanie Stancliffe, expert express sector lawyer comments, ‘

Express, courier, logistics companies need to ensure that they are providing PPE to those who are classed as “workers” and to the employees in the fleet. The workers are described as “limb b workers” in the legislation and in the recent IWGB case which extended the obligation to individuals who are not self-employed, and who must do the work themselves for an organisation which is not their client.

The legal definition of a “worker” has three parts:- someone who (i) must be working under any other contract, other than a contract of employment (ii) where the person agrees to do the work personally, not via a substitute and (iii) the relationship between the parties to the contract is not akin to a client or customer of any profession or business relationship.

Nina Day at HSE details the consultation to the IOC

Changes to the Personal Protective Equipment at Work Regulations 1992 (PPER)

HSE is consulting on changes to the PPER 1992. We encourage you to draw the attention of your stakeholders and other interested parties to this consultation launching on Monday 19th July 2021 and running for 4 weeks. The consultation can be accessed via HSE Consultation Hub from this date. The aim of the consultation is to understand the impact on stakeholders and businesses of extending the scope of the employers’ duties under the PPER to workers and not only employees.

Why is the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) making changes to the regulations?

In November 2020, a judgment was handed down in the judicial review action in the High Court brought by the Independent Workers Union of Great Britain (IWGB) against the Secretaries of State for Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) and the Department for Work and Pension (DWP), which decided that the government had failed to properly transpose Article 8(4) and 8(5) of EU Directive 89/391/EEC (“the Framework Directive”) and Article 3 of EU Directive 89/656/EEC of 30 November 1989 (“the Personal Protective Equipment Directive”) into UK law.

The Framework Directive sets out the minimum standards for health and safety through a series of general principles, and the Personal Protective Equipment Directive (“PPE Directive”) sets out the minimum health and safety requirements for the use of personal protective equipment in the workplace for workers.

The UK implemented the PPE Directive through the Personal Protective Equipment at Work Regulations 1992 (“PPER”) which places duties on employers to their ‘employees’ in regard to PPE. The High Court found that the PPE Directive required these duties to be extended to ‘limb (b) workers’ and not only ‘employees’. Therefore, HSE is making amendments to the PPER in order to align with the court’s judgment.

What does this mean?

Employers will have a duty to provide limb (b) workers with the same health and safety protections in respect of PPE as they do currently for employees.

Options on how to achieve the extension of the provisions to workers in the legislation will not be presented during the consultation as the key legislative changes are being made to align with the court decision.

For any enquiries, please contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.