The manifestos have been released and with them an outline of what to expect for several key industries and sectors should any of the parties be elected.
With that in mind, the health and safety and the environmental sectors can each expect some kind of impact of varying degree, depending on which Party comes out on top.
In the second of the "Picking apart the Party policies" series, Cedrec Legal Author, Amy Batch, looks at the shadow Party, Labour. Key issues will be examined with a degree of insight from Cedrec.
Environment
Labour say they will create an "Energy Security Board". This Board will plan and deliver an energy mix to meet the demand, consisting of renewables, nuclear, green gas, carbon capture and clean coal. The mix of this energy is not given in great detail, and the cleanliness of coal is a subject of great debate.
Regulatory regimes will be put in place before onshore oil and gas extraction can take place, whilst Labour state they wish to protect the offshore oil and gas industry, which they say will be achieved through certainty on tax rates and maximising potential for carbon storage. Extraction of oil and gas, whether conventional or not, does not coincide well with carbon targets and divestment pleas. Similarly to the Conservatives, however, transitional periods are necessary for divestment, if that is the intention, to be carried out without disrupting the power grid.
Labour pledge to remove the carbon from the electricity supply by 2030, with a "drive for energy efficiency". They also wish to create 1 million "green jobs" by 2025. Brilliant news for the environmental industry, but Labour haven't given too much away as to how this will be achieved in 10 short years.
Health and Safety
The Labour Party have not made clear what they intend to do in the instance they are elected for health and safety. Occupational safety is a large industry in itself, and over the last 40 years, since the introduction of the Health and Safety at Work etc. 1974, has been the subject of much debate and scrutiny.
Should the Conservatives continue to cut "red tape", it will be interesting to see if Labour maintain the Red Tape Challenge.
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