Rishi Sunak has announced that the UK general elections will go ahead on the 4th July 2024.
Below is a run down of how each political party pledges on workplace reform.
Looking at the Labour party, it has promised to make its ‘New Deal for Working People’ a core part of its plan for government if it wins.
It has promised to bring out the Employment Bill in the first 100 days, which could mean that by the 12th October 2024, there may be many changes such as:
- More rights from day one, including the right not to be unfairly dismissed, sick pay, parental leave
- Enhanced protection against sexual harassment
- Review of shared parental leave
- More regulation of AI
- Strengthen statutory sick pay, to include all workers, including those who are currently on low wages.
- Ban on zero-hour contract ( unless requested)
- Mandatory ethnicity and disability pay gap reporting.
- Raise awareness of neurodiversity, focusing on mental health, stress and Long Covid.
- Extending the time to make Employment Tribunal claims, to remove the compensation caps.
Moving on to the Conservative party, they haven’t emphasised much on employment law, but they are most likely to re-introduce employment law court fees, look at redefining ‘sex’ in the Equality Act to mean ‘biological sex’.
Employment Laws yet to be enacted:
There are several laws that received the Royal Assent but haven’t been implemented:
- A requirement for employers to give all tips and gratuities to workers, without any deductions- implementation delayed until October 2024
- Plans to lower the pensions auto-enrolment age from 22 to 18 under the Pensions (Extension of Automatic Enrolment) Act 2023, implementation date unknown
- A proactive duty to prevent sexual harassment at work, under Worker Protection (Amendment of Equality Act 2010) Act 2023. This received Royal Assent last year, with an expected implementation date in October 2024.
- The Neonatal Care (Leave and Pay) Act 2023, which gives parents the right to take up to 12 weeks of paid leave if their baby requires specialist care after birth, which is due to come into force in April 2025.
- A new right for workers to request a more predictable working pattern was expected in September 2024.
Moving on to the Liberal Democrats
- Parental leave reform, Give all workers, including the self-employed parents, a day one right to parental leave and pay. Each parent would be able to get six weeks of leave, with 46 weeks of parental leave to share between themselves as they choose. After the initial six weeks, parental pay would be £350 per week
- Increase paternity pay to 90% of wages with a cap for high earners.
Please note BRR LAW does not promote one political party over another.
This post is for information purposes only.
