Following the Labour Government’s first King’s Speech on 17 July 2024, the newly formed Government promised two employment-related bills:
An Employment Rights Bill
A draft Equality (Race and Disability) Bill
The new Government has promised to introduce its Employment Rights Bill within the first one hundred days (somewhere between 12 and 25 October 2024).
According to the briefing notes, the Employment Rights Bill will:
Ban exploitative zero-hours contracts.
End "fire and rehire" and "fire and replace".
Make parental leave, sick pay, and protection from unfair dismissal a day one right for all workers (subject to probationary periods to allow employers to assess new hires).
Remove the lower earnings limit and the waiting period for Statutory Sick Pay.
Make flexible working the default from day one for all workers.
Strengthen protections for new mothers, making it unlawful to dismiss a woman who has had a baby for six months after her return to work, other than in exceptional circumstances.
Establish a Fair Work Agency to strengthen enforcement of workplace rights.
Update trade union legislation, removing restrictions on trade union activity.
The draft Equality (Race and Disability) Bill
According to the briefing notes, the Government intends to “tackle inequality for ethnic minority and disabled people” by:
Enshrining in law the full right to equal pay for ethnic minorities and disabled people.
Introducing mandatory ethnicity and disability pay reporting for large employers (those with 250+ employees).
Additional implications for employers
In the future, the Government intends to introduce a “genuine living wage”, including removing what it describes as “discriminatory age bands”.
What happens next?
We will need to wait and see the draft legislation itself in order to fully understand what changes are being introduced, and how the reforms might work in practice.
The introduction of a bill is the first step in a process which includes a number of stages. This first step of the process is expected to happen somewhere between 12 and 25 October 2024.
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