This morning, the King's Speech affirmed Labour's plans to introduce an Employment Rights Bill to “legislate to introduce a new deal for working people to ban exploitative practices and enhance employment rights”.
The Prime Minister's briefing notes on the King's speech suggest that Labour will be implementing their New Deal for Working People in full. We prepared a detailed summary of the proposals in May 2024 but according to the briefing notes, the Employment Rights Bill will:
- make unfair dismissal available to workers from day one, although employers will still be able to operate probationary periods to assess new hires;
- ban exploitative zero-hour contracts, making sure that workers have a contract which reflects the hours they regularly work;
- end “fire and rehire” practices by reforming the law and replacing the statutory code;
- make parental leave and sick pay available to workers from day one of employment;
- strengthen statutory sick pay by removing the lower earnings limit and the waiting period;
- make flexible working the default from day-one for all workers;
- 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; and
- simplify the process for trade union recognition, repeal the laws on minimum service levels relating to industrial action, and introduce rights for workers to access a union at work.
In addition, a draft Equality (Race and Disability) Bill will be published to “enshrine the full right to equal pay in law" for ethnic minorities and disabled people. It will also introduce mandatory ethnicity and disability pay reporting for larger employers.
“My Government is committed to making work pay and will legislate to introduce a new deal for working people to ban exploitative practices and enhance employment rights”
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