5.12 Wc noted that the Health and Safety at Work Act lays a clear duty on 
the employer to protect his employees and also to avoid hazard to the public. 
We were advised that in the event of legal action a court, in considering whether 
an employer had taken all reasonably practical steps, would be likely td give 
great weight to whether he had sought or taken advice from the Genetic 
Manipulation Advisory Group once it was set up. The Health and Safety 
Executive also has powers of inspection to ensure compliance with requirements 
for the safety of workers and the public. These existing powers and duties 
arising from the Health and Safety at Work Act already provide a safeguard to 
the public. We were advised that as an additional measure, regulations could 
be made under the Act to require laboratories to submit experimental protocols 
and appropriate supporting information to the GMAG and we recommend 
that this should be done. Given such a requirement, it seems very unlikely 
that the advice of the GMAG would be disregarded. 
5.13 The Health and Safety at Work Act does not however cover hazards to 
the plant and animal populations and it seems unlikely that existing powers 
available to the Agriculture Departments could be invoked to provide any 
necessary statutory controls in this field. In any case, if statutory control is 
to be envisaged it may be desirable, on the analogy of the recommendations of 
the Working Party on the Laboratory Lse of Dangerous Pathogens referred to 
in paragraph 5.2 above, to envisage some consolidating legislation. Such 
specific legislation might be directed simply towards compulsory consultation 
with the GMAG or perhaps extend to a system of licensing for laboratories. 
A practical difficulty is that a definition of the work to be controlled (for 
example, on the lines in paragraph 1.3 above) would almost inevitably become 
outdated as the science developed and as new techniques emerged. Such a 
difficulty could be met by a provision that the work suoject to control should 
be specified in regulations which could be amended as necessary more readily 
than major legislation. 
5.14 We recommend that the system of voluntary control we have described 
should be established as quickly as possible since we believe this could provide 
immediate and effective control of the hazards while permitting valuable work 
to proceed safely. The operation of this system will enable the Government 
to consider the desirability and practicability of introducing specific consolidating 
legislation at a later date. 
Procedure 
5.15 We have considered whether the GMAG should tender its advice direct 
to laboratories or to a Government department. We understand that it is 
intended that laboratories wishing to work with dangerous pathogens will 
submit their applications to the appropriate Health or Agriculture Department 
and that the Department concerned will reply after consulting the DPAG 
and other interested departments: but in our view this analogy should not be 
pressed too far for the reasons we have discussed in paragraph 5.5 above. The 
role we see for the GMAG will be a scientific advisory one requiring it to 
maintain close and continuing contact with the laboratories where the work is 
being done. The GMAG will need to be aware of new developments in the 
science of genetic manipulation and in health monitoring, training and other 
safety related matters and it will need to be able to respond quickly to request 
from laboratories for advice on these topics. This is rather different from the 
role of the existing DPAG, which is essentially running a licensing system for 
laboratories working with dangerous pathogens. Because of possible doubts 
IV-18 
[ 453 ] 
