The Government plans to cut the amount of time small businesses spend on health and safety administration to less than three minutes a day.

Secretary of state for business John Hutton said: "Cutting the amount of paperwork for low-risk businesses and making complex regulations easier to understand will help create safer environments for workers and the public."

The strategy will mean that workplaces deemed low risk would receive fewer health and safety inspections.

But trade union Unite claims workers will pay a price for this. A spokesman said: "Inspections and investigations by the Health and Safety Executive have already fallen to an alarmingly low rate, and a strategy based on giving more credence to so-called low-risk sectors will push this rate even further down."