Last week the government introduced the Employment Rights Bill into Parliament which is one of its flagship pieces of legislation for the first 100 days of government. The Bill seeks to update and upgrade employment law to ensure it is fit for modern life and our modern economy, giving workers and business more flexibility.
The bill will bring forward 28 individual employment reforms, including:
- Ending exploitative zero hours contracts and fire and rehire practices
- Establishing day one rights for paternity, parental and bereavement leave
- Statutory sick pay will be strengthened, removing the lower earnings limit for all workers and cutting out the waiting period before sick pay kicks in.
Content of the Bill:
Ending one-sided flexibility
The bill will end exploitative zero hours contracts and along with those on low hours contracts, workers will now have the right to a guaranteed hours contract if they work regular hours over a defined period, giving them security of earnings whilst allowing people to remain on zero hours contracts where they prefer to. The Bill also aims to shut down the loopholes that allow bullying fire and rehire and fire and replace to continue and putting in place measures to give greater protections against unfair dismissal from day one.
It will repeal legislation put in place by the previous administration, including the Minimum Service Levels (Strikes) Act legislation.
Supporting Working Families
The Government has pledged to:
- Change the law to make flexible working the default for all, unless the employer can prove it’s unreasonable.
- Set a clear standard for employers by establishing a new right to bereavement leave, with the entitlement sculpted with the needs of employees and the concerns of employers at the forefront.
- Deliver stronger protections for pregnant women and new mothers returning to work including protection from dismissal whilst pregnant, on maternity leave and within six months of returning to work.
- Tackle low pay by accounting for cost of living when setting the Minimum Wage and remove discriminatory age bands.
- Establish a new Fair Work Agency that will bring together different government enforcement bodies, enforce holiday pay for the first time and strengthen statutory sick pay. It will create a stronger, recognisable single organisation that people know where to go for help – with better support for employers who want to comply with the law and tough action on the minority who deliberately flout it.
Beyond the Bill
The Government has also published a Next Steps document that outlines reforms it will look to implement in the future under its ‘Make Work Pay’ plans set out before the UK General Election.
Subject to Consultation, these will include:
- A Right to Switch Off, preventing employees from being contacted out of hours, except in exceptional circumstances, to allow them the rest and get the recuperation they need to give 100% during their shift.
- A strong commitment to end pay discrimination by expanding the Equality (Race and Disparity) Bill to make it mandatory for large employers to report their ethnicity and disability pay gap.
- A move towards a single status of worker and transition towards a simpler two-part framework for employment status.
- Reviews into the parental leave and carers leave systems to ensure they are delivering for employers, workers and their loved ones.
Further detail on many of the policies in the Bill will be provided through regulations after Royal Assent. The government expect to begin consulting on these reforms in 2025, seeking significant input from all stakeholders, and anticipate this meaning that the majority of reforms will take effect no earlier than 2026.
The Bill has its Second Reading on 21 October 2024. The bill page for the Employment Rights Bill has now been published. The BTHA will monitor the progress of the Bill through Parliament, and further consultation by government on the proposals.
