The HSE LOLER review: what could change and what to do now
HSE ran a Call for Evidence in late 2025 reviewing LOLER 1998 and the Pressure Systems Safety Regulations, with outcomes pending through 2026. What the review covers, what might change, and the no-regrets moves for duty holders.
By Hovermarks team
Quick answer. HSE ran a Call for Evidence from 1 October to 11 November 2025 covering LOLER 1998 and the Pressure Systems Safety Regulations, aiming to build an evidence base for simplifying and streamlining the regimes while maintaining safety standards. No changes are in force yet: LOLER 1998 and ACOP L113 (2014) still apply in full. The sensible posture for duty holders in 2026 is compliance as usual, records in good order, and attention when HSE publishes the outcome.
For the first time in a generation, the lifting equipment regime is formally under review. That sentence deserves both more and less excitement than it usually gets: more, because LOLER has gone almost untouched since 1998; less, because a Call for Evidence is the earliest possible stage of regulatory change, and nothing binds until new regulations are made.
What actually happened
On 1 October 2025 HSE opened a Call for Evidence on two regimes at once: the Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations 1998 and the Pressure Systems Safety Regulations 2000. It ran until 11 November 2025 and invited industry, professional bodies, and organisations with relevant expertise to submit evidence.
HSE's stated objective: build a full evidence base to identify viable opportunities for simplifying and streamlining regulatory processes, reflecting the current industry landscape and anticipating future innovation, while maintaining workplace health and safety standards.
A Call for Evidence is not a consultation on draft regulations. It is the stage before that: HSE gathering the case for whether and what to change. Any actual change would still need to pass through formal consultation, drafting, and parliamentary process.
What "simplifying and streamlining" could plausibly mean
Reading the review's framing against long-standing industry discussion, the areas most likely on the table:
- Examination intervals. The fixed 6-month and 12-month defaults date from 1998. A risk-based or condition-based regime, leaning more heavily on the written-scheme mechanism, is the most-discussed modernisation. Duty holders comfortable with written schemes of examination are already working the way a reformed regime would likely ask.
- Digital records. The regulations were written for paper. Explicit recognition of digital reports and registers, and possibly standardised data fields, would formalise what most of the industry already does. The current position on formats is covered in record keeping under Regulation 11.
- Overlap between regimes. LOLER and PSSR being reviewed together signals interest in aligning duplicated processes (both involve periodic examination by competent persons under written schemes).
- Competent person requirements. Clarifying competence and independence expectations, an area where ACOP L113 currently does the heavy lifting.
None of this is announced. It is the reasonable read of where the evidence questions pointed.
What does NOT change in 2026
Everything currently in force stays in force:
- Thorough examination at the Regulation 9 intervals (6 months for accessories and people-lifting equipment, 12 months otherwise, or per written scheme)
- Reports containing the Schedule 1 fields
- Regulation 10 defect reporting, including the duty to send serious-defect reports to the enforcing authority
- Regulation 11 record retention
An HSE inspector visiting tomorrow applies the 1998 regulations and the 2014 ACOP, unchanged. "It's under review" is not a compliance position.
No-regrets moves for duty holders
Whatever the review produces, three preparations pay off in every scenario:
- Get the asset register and examination history digital and complete. Every plausible reform direction rewards duty holders who can produce clean, per-asset examination data on demand. If reform standardises digital reporting, you are ready. If it does not, you are simply better run.
- Use written schemes deliberately. If intervals become more risk-based, organisations already operating competent-person-authored schemes carry straight on. If they do not, a good scheme still optimises your examination spend today.
- Watch the outcome, not the commentary. The next formal step is HSE publishing what the evidence said and whether it proposes change. We track this and will update this post when the outcome lands.
Where Hovermarks fits
Hovermarks keeps the per-asset examination history, intervals, written-scheme overrides, and defect close-outs that every version of the future regime will want, digital from the start. The LOLER inspection guide collects our full LOLER resource set.