Employment Rights Bill and Equality (Race and Disability) Bill

The new Government has announced some of its plans for the new parliament, including significant changes to employment law. This includes the Government pledge to introduce a new deal for working people to ban exploitative practices and enhance employment rights.

The key employment law measure announced in the King’s Speech is the Employment Rights Bill, which is expected to be introduced within the first 100 days of the Government taking office. According to the background briefing notes on the King’s Speech, the Bill will include provisions to:

• Ban 'exploitative' 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 shifts with proportionate compensation for any shifts cancelled or curtailed. The briefing notes state that this aims to end the one-sided flexibility in such contracts
• End the practice of ‘fire and rehire’ by reforming the law to provide effective remedies and replacing the previous Government’s statutory Code of Practice
• Make parental leave, sick pay and protection from unfair dismissal a ‘day one’ right (subject to probationary periods to assess new hires)
• Strengthen statutory sick pay, by removing the lower earnings limit as well as the three-day waiting period
• Make flexible working the default from day one for all workers, with employers required to accommodate this as far as is reasonable
• Strengthen 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
• Establish a new Single Enforcement Body, also known as a Fair Work Agency, to strengthen enforcement of workplace rights.

The Equality (Race and Disability) Bill will enshrine in law the full right to equal pay for ethnic minorities and disabled people, which the briefing notes claim will make it easier for them to bring pay discrimination claims. It will also introduce mandatory ethnicity and disability pay reporting for employers with 250 or more employees to help close the ethnicity and disability pay gaps.

It remains to be seen how these changes will be put forward in the respective Bills, and we will provide further updates as soon as possible.

If you have any questions, you can contact our employment team at [email protected]