A proportionate approach to Health & Safety risk – a key recommendation of the UK’s Nuclear Regulatory Taskforce
24 Nov 2025
2 min read
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Today (24 November 2025), the UK’s Nuclear Regulatory Taskforce has published its Final Report, calling for “a radical reset” of nuclear regulation. The report includes 47 recommendations for government to “speed up delivery, reduce costs and strengthen safety”.
Amongst those recommendations is one which has important ramifications for health & safety regulation well beyond the nuclear industry.
In 2011, the UK’s highest Court examined the so-called ‘gloss disproportion test’ in health & safety law. It is used to assess whether an organisation or individual has complied with their health & safety duties to manage risk to a level which is ‘as low as reasonably practicable’ (ALARP). The Court said that using the gross disproportion test “represents, in my view, an unjustified gloss on statutory wording which requires the employer simply to show that he did all that was reasonably practicable” (Quantum v Baker, at para 84).
A key recommendation in today’s report seeks to give effect to that observation: “Government should propose secondary legislation under section 50 of HSWA which clarifies the law. The test should not be whether a measure is grossly disproportionate, but instead what is proportionate taking into account a multi-faceted consideration of the level of risk” (pages 60-61 of its Final Report).
The Taskforce Report has been broadly welcomed across the nuclear industry as part of sector reforms and the Government intends to respond formally to this important work at the Budget this week.
Burges Salmon is grateful to have been able to make a focussed submission to the Nuclear Regulatory Taskforce on this issue. In particular, we are grateful that the Taskforce has included, at Recommendation 8, a test for proportionality which is substantively identical to the test proposed at page 21 of our submissions. Our analysis of the proportionality test and its benefits is available in the embedded PDF included in this article.
The test should not be whether a measure is grossly disproportionate, but instead what is proportionate taking into account a multi-faceted consideration of the level of risk...