There is some confusion (as always with this government) about what they mean by strict liability. To be strict about it, strict liability is concept for civil law not criminal law.
It means that if something goes wrong there is no need to prove that there was any fault by the defendant. An example of this is the interpretation of Reg 5 in PUWER in the case of Stark v Post Office.
‘Every employer shall ensure that work equipment is maintained in an efficient state, in efficient working order and in good repair.’
The courts ruled that this mean that if there was any injury caused work equipment then that was evidence that the equipment had not been maintained and the fact that they had a programme to maintain this equipment and done everything reasonably practicable to maintain this was not relevant. This is similar to the Employer’s Liability (Defective Equipment) Act 1969 which also creates a similar liability. This only applies to civil actions.
The government and the courts have refused to apply the principle of strict liability to criminal matters. When they made their submissions to the European Court of Justice in relation to the use of the phrase ‘so far reasonably practicable’ they stated that to remove this from UK law would have created a strict liability in criminal law which is something that they would regard are unacceptable.
Strict liability is different from absolute duty, where you have to do something, without any sort of ‘so far as reasonably practicable' qualification, for example under the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations you must produce a risk assessment, not just if it is reasonable practicable to do so.
So what the government actually mean in relation to getting rid of strict labiality I am not really sure about.

Thanks chaps...

Does anybody have any info on the proposed revokation of CAR2006 to be replaced by a new set of regs?

I think that "Strict Liability" can arise from either criminal or civil law. Interestingly strict liability arose from health and safety standards in factories. The attempts to prove mens rea on the part of factory owners led to this concept being developed and it being its designation as “strict” as an offence can be caused even if those involved are not aware of all the facts. An example is selling alcohol to youngsters.

The 2007 case was specifically about section 2 HSWA and the use of "reasonably practicable". The origin of this stems fro the differences in legal practice between the UK and the rest of Europe. Generally speaking, most European countries have an inquisitorial legal system where the law is written as an absolute duty and an investigating magistrate or judge will then determine the scale of the non-compliance - this is where their "reasonably practicable" is exercised whilst ours is written into the primary legislation.

As it stands, a significant amount of H&S regulations in the UK are strict liability provision - certainly most of PUWER, LOLER, workplace and management regs are, i.e. anything not qualified with reasonable practicability or having some sort of statutory defence.

Yes, the roofer could have argued that but with the concept of "reasonable practicability" also comes a reverse burden on the defence. Once the prosecution has established a prima facie case that there has been a breach, the burden is placed on the defendant to demonstrate (on a balance of probabilities) that they had done all that was reasonably practicable - this is contained in s40 HSWA.

RayRapp,
Case law [R v Carr-Briant, 1943, KB 607] has established that in any criminal proceedings, where there is a burden of proof on the accused, then the standard is less than that on the prosecution and is "on the balance of probabilities".

In civil proceedings the standard is the same for all parties and is on the balance of probabilities.

Edward, thank you for bringing the aforementioned citation to my notice, I apologise to myles for correcting his previous post. You live and learn.

You may have the nub of it there, Bob. All part of the Witch Hunt.