UK Offence Report

Contravention of The Control of Lead at Work Regulations 2002

the instrument as a whole of The Control of Lead at Work Regulations 2002

This offence was read from the text as made, and no revised version was available, so a later revocation could not be ruled out. Check the current text at legislation.gov.uk.

What the provision says

Contravening this instrument is an offence under section 33(1)(c) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974. The instrument itself contains no offence-creating words.

Text as made, from legislation.gov.uk. © Crown copyright, reused under the Open Government Licence v3.0. This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.

Who it binds, and what has to be proved

Binds
a person
Conduct
breaching the provision
Fault element
Strict liability
Burden of proof
Not determined

The prosecution must prove that the conduct happened. This is a strict liability offence as drafted: the provision uses no word of intention, knowledge, recklessness or negligence, so there is no need to show that a person meant to do it, knew about it, or was careless.

Intention, knowledge and carelessness are irrelevant to guilt. They may still matter a great deal to sentence.

Classifier’s reasoning: contravention offences of this kind are strict as to the breach; the fault position is governed by the parent Act and was not read from it.

What would breach the instrument as a whole?

These are illustrations, not law. They are generated from the provision’s own words to show the shape of the offence. Whether any particular conduct is caught depends on the full text, on any amendment since, and on the facts.

  1. Doing what the provision prohibits, or failing to do what it requires under the Control of Lead at Work Regulations 2002.

Penalty

Mode of trial
Set by another provision — the instrument states the penalty by reference to an Act or to another regulation
Maximum fine
Not determined
Maximum prison (summary)
Not determined

The instrument does not state a penalty itself. It sets one by reference to section 33(1)(c) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974.

the penalty is in the parent Act, not in this instrument.

No penalty was determined from this instrument. It may be in the enabling Act, or in a general penalties provision this pass did not connect to the offence. Absence of a figure here is not evidence that the offence carries no penalty.

Sentencing

Offences of this kind are usually sentenced under the guidelines below. This is a mapping by subject, not a finding about this provision, and the links go to a search of the Sentencing Council’s own site.

Prosecution figures

No published per-offence figure was found for this provision, and it could not be matched to a Ministry of Justice offence code. Offences created by statutory instrument very largely do not have one. Absence of a figure is not evidence that the offence is unused.

Status and lifecycle

Current status
Status not determined
Made
24 October 2002
In force from
21 November 2002
Extent
Not stated

How this was established: read from the text as made; no revised version available, so later revocation could not be ruled out.

What the instrument is for

(This note is not part of the Regulations) — the explanatory note published with the instrument, © Crown copyright.

These Regulations re-enact, with modifications, the Control of Lead at Work Regulations 1998 (S.I. 1998/543) (“the 1998 Regulations”). The 1998 Regulations imposed requirements for the protection of employees who might be exposed to lead at work and of other persons who might be affected by such work and also imposed certain duties on employees concerning their own protection from such exposure. The Regulations, with the exception of regulations 4, 7, 8, 9(2) and (3) and 10(7) and (11) to (15), implement as respects Great Britain Council Directive 98/24/EC (OJ No. L 131, 5.5.98, p.11) on the protection of the health and safety of workers from risks related to chemical agents at work (fourteenth individual Directive within the meaning of Article 16(1) of Directive 89/391/EEC) insofar as it relates to risks to health from exposure to lead. In addition to minor and drafting amendments, the Regulations make the following changes of substance— include certain further definitions (regulation 2); extend the matters to be considered when carrying out an assessment of the risk from exposure to lead and require the risk assessment to be reviewed regularly and forthwith in certain circumstances (regulation 5); detail the measures which the employer must take to prevent or adequately control the exposure of his employees to lead (regulation 6); provide for further duties in respect of care and decontamination of personal protective equipment (regulation 8); provide for the keeping of an individual record of air monitoring where an employee is required to be under medical surveillance (regulation 9); extends the circumstances in which an employee must be under medical surveillance and the duties imposed upon the employer where the blood-lead concentration or urinary lead concentration of an employee reaches the appropriate suspension level (regulation 10); introduce a duty to ensure that the contents of containers and pipes for lead used at work are clearly identifiable (regulation 11(5)); and introduce a duty on the employer to prepare procedures, provide information and establish warning systems to deal with an emergency in the workplace related to the presence of lead (regulation 12). A copy of the regulatory impact assessment prepared in respect of these Regulations can be obtained from the Health and Safety Executive, Economic Advisers Unit, Rose Court, 2 Southwark Bridge, London SE1 9HS. A copy of the transposition note in relation to implementation of Council Directive 98/24/EC can be obtained from the Health and Safety Executive, International Branch at the same address. Copies of both these documents have been placed in the Library of each House of Parliament.

Read the full note and every offence in this instrument

How this was identified as an offence

Everything above rests on the judgement that this provision creates a criminal offence, rather than mentioning one. That judgement is made by rule, from the words of the provision, and this is the rule that made it — with a confidence of 0.70.

Basis
the penalty comes from the enabling Act rather than from this instrument
Confidence
0.70 of 1.00

A provision that states a penalty for an offence created elsewhere can read very like one that creates an offence, and the rules can mistake the one for the other. If the text quoted above sets a penalty for something made an offence by another provision, treat the classification on this page with that in mind, and read the instrument.

Check the source