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This week鈥檚 widespread shutdown of building sites across the UK was probably triggered by contractors realising their insurance does not cover claims for breaches of health and safety law, a leading construction lawyer has said.

Jon Miller, a partner at law firm Fenwick Elliott, said firms were more concerned with complying with the Health and Safety at Work Act than the government鈥檚 social distancing advice to keep sites open as long as workers could keep 2m apart at all times.

The 1974 act states: 鈥淚t shall be the duty of every employer to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health, safety and welfare at work of his [sic] employees.鈥�

Miller (pictured) warned continuing to keep sites open would have exposed contractors to litigation by workers.

Speaking at a 好色先生TV webinar yesterday, Miller said: 鈥淲hat has happened in the last 48 hours with many sites closing and other people saying that they have been forced to go to work is I think people are finally taking note of the Health and Safety at Work Act.鈥�

He said health and safety at work regulations meant that when a new risk appeared such as coronavirus, 鈥渢here needs to be a new risk assessment鈥�.

He added: 鈥淭he person who is responsible for risk assessments needs to take a risk assessment of the site and what measures needs to be put in place.鈥�

His advice for subcontractors was, if a new risk assessment has not been done, to write to the main contractor and 鈥渁sk what measures are being taken. That鈥檚 absolutely crucial, and if you haven鈥檛 done it, that needs to be done straight away.鈥�

Miller also warned contractors to 鈥渒eep your emails鈥� in case employers denied that an instruction to stop work had been issued if litigation is brought at a later date.

鈥淧eople have different memories of what has happened, and the cynical lawyer could say that people lie. What you need to do is look at what people wrote at the time 鈥� does it look like an instruction, did they act on it, did they confirm it as well, and you build up a picture of acting in accordance with instruction.鈥�

This week, many of the UK鈥檚 largest contractors and housebuilders shut down their sites although a number, including Balfour Beatty, have kept jobs up and running.