On 1 June 1974, a fireball rose over the village of Flixborough, Lincolnshire. A chemical plant exploded, killing 28 people and injuring 36. It brought into sharp focus debates taking place at the time about health and safety at work, and beyond.

Making its way through parliament was the legislation that, on 31 July 1974, became the Health and Safety at Work Act (HSWA). As the HSWA turns 50, it’s important to understand why it was necessary and how it has changed our relationship with health and safety.

Before the HSWA was enacted, workplace deaths and injuries were on the rise, from nearly 168,000 casualties in 1958 to just under 323,000 in 1969. The regulations dated back to the 19th century, with a hodge-podge of laws and inspectorates that covered some workplaces but ignored others.

Regulation often focused on specifications for equipment, like machine guards – but often these were inflexible and, with changing materials and technologies, were out of date by the time standards were set. The nature of work was changing rapidly. Who was exposed to danger, and where, was evolving. Heavy industry declined, office and services work increased, and more women and immigrants entered the workforce.

In 1970, Labour’s employment secretary Barbara Castle appointed a committee to take a broad look at health and safety at work. The Robens Committee produced its report in 1972, finding the system unfit for purpose. Its recommendations formed the bedrock of the 1974 HSWA, introduced under a Conservative administration and passed by a Labour government.

A new era

The Robens report and HSWA contained radical elements. The Act introduced a unified regulator – the Health and Safety Executive (HSE). Baked into the mechanics of regulation was a seat at the table for employers, unions and the state.

The HSWA moved away from prescription, to an ostensibly more flexible, risk-based approach. This gave organisations the ability to manage workplace dangers in a responsive way, anticipating where hazards might arise while removing or mitigating for their effects “so far as reasonably practicable”. It meant it was possible to respond, relatively quickly, to dangers arising from new processes or new workplaces.

A significant principle was at the heart of the HSWA – an “identity of interest” between employer and employee. According to this logic, worker and boss should act with the same goals in mind, in a self-regulatory way. At times, this has proven problematic – interests haven’t always been shared.

In practice, HSE inspectors continued the strategy of persuading employers to make improvements. In 1977, regulations came into force allowing unions to appoint workplace safety representatives. Union membership peaked in 1979 but as it later declined there have been challenges in how the health and safety of non-unionised workers is secured.

There were two more major changes introduced by the HSWA. Coverage was extended to include virtually every worker, bringing some five million additional people under its remit. And while previously health and safety had largely been the domain of industrial workplaces, an employer’s duties were extended to consider the public.

This was critical after events such as the 1966 Aberfan disaster, which saw a mining spoil heap engulf a Welsh village, killing 144 people including 116 children at the junior school. “Health and safety” effectively came to encompass everyone.

This may have been one of the roots of subsequent problems. As so many people now came into contact with the concept of health and safety, it became more visible – and some people found it problematic. It has been seen by some on the political left as weak legislation with a weak regulatory agency.

Conversely, some on the political right have seen it as a manifestation of an overbearing state.

From the 1980s onwards, health and safety became the focus of increasing public and political debate. Some of this was articulated as red tape holding business back, and a deregulatory agenda (which arguably contributed to the Grenfell Tower fire in 2017).

Many of the pressures identified at the 40th anniversary of the HSWA remain. Funding for the HSE has been reduced and the idea of the “legitimacy” of health and safety has been questioned.

Nevertheless, research funded by the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health in 2016 showed that despite lingering ideas of “health and safety gone mad”, public attitudes were actually nuanced and broadly positive.

There is an opportunity now for the new Labour government to increase support for the HSE, the HSWA and the principle of health and safety.

Tragically, the HSWA hasn’t stopped all workplace deaths and injuries – it never could. As well as the everyday casualties, there has been a long list of large-scale disasters under the HSWA’s watch: the King’s Cross underground fire, the Piper Alpha offshore tragedy, the Clapham Junction crash, the Marchioness disaster, the Ladbroke Grove crash and more.

That these tragedies could happen represents a complex mix of individual, corporate and regulatory failings. Yet, things have improved – not solely due to the HSWA, but this legislation has played a part.

In 1974, the rate of fatal injury was 2.9 per 100,000 workers; in 2023-24, it sits at 0.42, representing 138 deaths from work-related incidents.

The HSWA has had its critics. It is clearly not a perfect system – this will be publicly debated in London in November, at an event organised by the History and Policy network, bringing together health and safety practitioners, academics and trade unionists.

Although the HSWA has proven to be sufficiently flexible to last largely unchanged for 50 years, we can’t afford to take it for granted or to stop seeking improvements in people’s health, safety and wellbeing.

Despite continued challenges to how the health and safety of workers and others is best secured, underlying the HSWA is a principle that few would argue with: people should come home from work at the end of the day safe and well.