The King’s Speech – employment updates

In the King’s Speech at the State Opening of Parliament yesterday, the Labour Government have set out their first proposals for legislative change, following their transition into government as a result of the General Election, including proposals relevant to employment law. 

The King’s speech and accompanying briefing notes, published by the Prime Minister’s Office, sets out further detail on the proposed plans to changes in Employment Law, in the form of the Employment Rights Bill, looking to implement proposals previously set out in ‘Labour’s Plan to Make Work Pay: Delivering A New Deal for Working People’, which was published prior to the General Election.

The Briefing notes state that the Government’s Employment Rights Bill will include a commitment to the following: 

• Making parental leave, sick pay and protection from unfair dismissal available from day one on the job for all workers (subject to probationary periods to assess new hires);

• Security and Predictability, banning zero-hour contracts, ensuring that all workers get reasonable notice of any changes in shift with proportionate compensation for any cancelled shifts;

• Ending practices surrounding ‘Fire and Rehire’ and ‘Fire and Replace’ by reforming the law to provide effective remedies and replacing the previous statutory code; 

• Enhancing protection for new mothers, making it unlawful to dismiss a woman who has had a baby for six months after her return to work (except in specific circumstances);

• Changes to Statutory Sick Pay, removing the lower earnings limit to make it available to all workers as well as the removal of the three-day the waiting period;

• Making flexible working the default from day-one for all workers, requiring to accommodate this as far as is reasonable;

• 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 Fair Work Agency, a new Single Enforcement Body, to enforce 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;

• Making developments to Trade Union Legislation, removing restrictions on Trade Union activity, including repealing the law on minimum service levels, ensuring industrial relations are based around good faith negotiation and bargaining and simplifying the process of statutory regulation, introducing a regulated route to ensure workers and Trade Union members have a reasonable right to access a union within workplaces;

• Reinstating the School Support Staff Negotiating Body, to establish national terms and conditions, career progression routes and fair pay rates;

Alongside the Employment Rights Bill, a separate Equality (Race and Disability) Bill seeks to implement full right to equal pay for ethnic minorities and disabled people. The Bill also seeks to introduce mandatory ethnicity and disability pay gap reporting for organisations that have 250+ employees. 

Although the draft bills are expected to be ‘introduced within the first 100 days of the Government taking office’ it is unclear at this time as to what exactly will be included within the bills and what the proposed timeframe will be for the legislation coming into force. Even with Labour’s large working majority in the House of Commons, it could be many months before the proposed new laws are in force. 

Stone King’s specialist Employment and HR Team will keep a close eye on developments in this area.