Key takeaways
Major reforms to strengthen worker protections
Plans include banning exploitative zero-hour contracts and improving sick pay.
Day-one rights for leave and unfair dismissal
Employees gain immediate access to key protections from their first day.
New enforcement and equality measures introduced
Fair Work Agency and Equality Bill aim to boost compliance and pay fairness.
In the King’s Speech, the new government promised to introduce legislation in this Parliament which will enact many of Labour’s plans to improve working rights.
First, an ambitious and wide-ranging new Employment Rights Bill will implement the following policies into law:
banning exploitative zero-hour contracts, ensuring workers have a right to a contract that reflects the number of hours they regularly work and that all workers get reasonable notice of any changes in shift with proportionate compensation for any shifts cancelled or curtailed.
ending ‘Fire and Rehire’ and ‘Fire and Replace’ by reforming the law to provide effective remedies and replacing the previous government’s statutory code.
making parental leave, sick pay and protection from unfair dismissal available from day 1 for all workers. Employers will continue to be able to operate probationary periods to assess new hires, although the detailed interaction between probationary periods and day 1 rights has not yet been explained.
strengthening Statutory Sick Pay by removing the lower earnings limit to make it available to all workers as well as the waiting period.
making flexible working the default from day-one for all workers, with employers required to accommodate this as far as is reasonable, to reflect the modern workplace.
strengthening protections for new mothers by making it unlawful to dismiss a woman who has had a baby for six months after her return to work, except in specific circumstances.
establishing a new Single Enforcement Body, also known as a Fair Work Agency, to strengthen enforcement of workplace rights.
establishing a Fair Pay Agreement in the adult social care sector and, following review, assess how and to what extent such agreements could benefit other sectors.
reinstating the School Support Staff Negotiating Body, to establish national terms and conditions, career progression routes, and fair pay rates.
updating trade union legislation, removing unnecessary restrictions on trade union activity – including the previous government’s approach to minimum service levels – and ensuring industrial relations are based around good faith negotiation and bargaining.
simplifying the process of statutory trade union recognition and introducing a regulated route to ensure workers and union members have a reasonable right to access a union within workplaces.
Second, a new Equality (Race and Disability) Bill will:
enshrine in law the full right to equal pay for ethnic minorities and disabled people, making it much easier for them to bring unequal pay claims. Claimants currently face significant barriers when bringing pay discrimination claims on the grounds of ethnicity or disability.
introduce mandatory ethnicity and disability pay reporting for larger employers (those with 250+ employees) to help close the ethnicity and disability pay gaps. Exposing pay gaps will enable companies to constructively consider why they exist and how to tackle them.
The timing of these new Bills, and of any prior public consultation, has not yet been announced, but they are clearly near the top of the new government’s list of priorities and so employers will need to ensure that they are ready for compliance within a relatively short period of time.
