Employers can be fined if they force workers to come in unnecessarily

If employers force workers to come in unnecessarily they could be fined, the Health Secretary said today.

Matt Hancock addressed the issue, saying that new employer guidance will be published today – including staff staying two metres away from each other.

Shadow Health Minister Jonathan Ashworth raised the issue in the House of Commons, asking whether employers could get a fine for making people come in when they could work from home instead.

Mr Hancock said: “Absolutely, those fines are available if that is absolutely necessary”, before adding: “The actions we took yesterday are not actions any UK government would want to take.”

Richard Townshend / Wikimedia

He continued: “The goal is clear, to slow the rate of transmission, to protect the NHS and save lives. Our instructions are simple. Stay at home. Employers should be taking every possible step to make sure that remote working can happen.

“I want to be clear that where people absolutely cannot work from home, they can still go to work. Indeed it’s important that they do to keep the country running.

“Key workers, for example in the NHS, social care, pharmacists, medicine supply chain, should go to work unless they are self-isolating due to symptoms.

“We’ll be publishing guidance later today to explain steps that employers must take to ensure that employees are safe, including making sure there is a two metre gap between workers wherever possible.”