Government confirms plans to make work pay during King’s Speech

The King’s Speech 2024, during which the new Labour government outlined its priorities for the months ahead, has now taken place. In total 35 draft laws were outlined by the Government which included two bills relating to employment rights: the Employment Rights Bill and the Draft Equality (Race and Disability) Bill.

The Employment Rights Bill

The Government has confirmed that it is committed to delivering its New Deal for Working People in full. The Employment Rights Bill (the Bill) is to be introduced within the first 100 days.

Whilst the content of the Bill has not been confirmed, the King’s Speech indicates that Labour will focus on:

• 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 reframing the law to provide effective remedies and replacing the previous statutory code

• Making parental leave, sick pay, and protection from unfair dismissal available from day one, on the job for all workers. Employers will be able to operate probationary periods to assess new hires

• Strengthening Statutory Sick Pay by removing the lower earnings limit and 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

• Strengthening protection 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 assess how 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 so it is fit for a modern economy

• Simplifying the process of statutory recognition and introducing a regulated route to ensure workers and union members have a reasonable right to access a union within workplace

The Government will also deliver a genuine living wage that accounts for the cost of living and remove the minimum wage age bands.

The Draft Equality (Race and Disability) Bill

Under a separate Equality (Race and Disability) Bill (the Equality Bill), Labour 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, making it easier for them to bring forward equal pay claims where they have been underpaid

• Introducing mandatory ethnicity and disability pay reporting for employers with 250+ employees to help close the ethnicity and disability pay gaps

Comment

Labour has confirmed that it will work in partnership with trade unions and businesses to deliver its New Deal for Working People and is therefore expected to consult on the draft Bill. It is unclear whether consultation will take place in relation to the Equality Bill.

We will provide further updates once the draft bills and/or the outcome of any consultation have been published.