The King’s Speech 2024 – Labour’s implementation of the ‘New Deal for Working People’ begins

Claire Treacy, Senior Associate

Following Labour’s win on the 4^th July, the King’s Speech set out the legislative agenda for Labour’s new Employment Rights Bill.  We previously wrote about what a Labour government would likely mean for UK employment laws here.

As part of the King’s Speech, Labour have reiterated their commitment to introduce the Employment Rights Bill within the first 100 days of being in office (by 12^th October 2024) and have touted the changes as the “biggest upgrade to workers’ rights in a generation”. However, this doesn’t mean that the new laws will be in place by the 12^th October, what it does mean is that Labour is committing to start the process by then.

The King’s Speech briefing outlines that the “plan includes commitments to the following”, so we are yet to see whether all the below policies will make it into the final draft of the Bill but the following are likely to be included in the Employment Rights Bill:

New Day 1 rights – Unfair Dismissal, Flexible Working, Parental Leave and Sick Pay

One of Labour’s standout pledges was that employees will have the right not to be unfairly dismissed from day 1 of their employment. We previously outlined that Labour indicated some concession to enable the use of probationary periods though it is unclear how exactly that would work, and the King’s Speech briefing notes just outline that the Government will ensure that employers can operate probationary periods to assess new hires. It remains to be seen whether any limits on the length of a probationary period will be introduced.

The King’s Speech has also been used to announce that parental leave (an entitlement for parents to up to 18 weeks unpaid leave to care for their child) and statutory sick pay will also be available to workers from day 1 of their employment.

The briefing also states that as far as is reasonable, employers should try to accommodate flexible working as a day-one right for all employees. The law has only recently been changed to strengthen the ability for employees to make flexible working requests, but this new law is expected to go further.

Banning Zero-Hour Contracts

Workers will have a right to a contract that reflects the number of hours they regularly work. They will also have a right to receive reasonable notice of any changes in shifts and will have a right to be proportionately compensated when any shifts are cancelled.

Ending Fire and Rehire and Fire and Replace

The Government will prohibit the practice of dismissing and re-engaging employees to introduce changes to their contractual terms of employment. We understood from Labour’s manifesto that Fire & Rehire would only be permitted where the business would not survive without it.

Strengthening Statutory Sick Pay

As well as employees being entitled to statutory sick pay from day 1 of their employment, the lower earnings limit (currently £125 per week) and waiting period (the 3 days before an employee is entitled to statutory sick pay) will be removed making SSP available to far more employees and on far more occasions.

Strengthening protections for new mothers

It will be unlawful to dismiss a woman who has had a baby for six months after her return to work, except in specific circumstances. We do not yet know what these specific circumstances are.

Similar to flexible working requests, the law has only recently changed in this area so that pregnant employees, employees on maternity leave as well as mothers that have returned to work within 18 months of their baby being born must be offered suitable alternative employment in a redundancy situation. This new legislation will, however, go a lot further than this.

The King’s Speech also referred to the Employment Rights Bill being used to strengthen the position of trade unions and employees who are members of trade unions.

Introducing a new Equality (Race and Disability) Bill

In addition to the Employment Rights Bill, the Government have also proposed a draft Equality (Race and Disability) Bill which aims to tackle inequality for ethnic minority and disabled people by:

• Making it much easier for ethnic minority and disabled people to bring claims for unequal pay. At the moment equal pay claims are limited to claims based on sex; and
• Introduce mandatory ethnicity and disability pay reporting for employers with more than 250 employees (in the same way that we already have gender pay gap reporting).

There is a long way to go before these proposals become law but one thing is sure, Labour’s policy proposals are likely to mean that there will be an increase in claims as employees are afforded more rights and therefore businesses will need to keep on top of the legislative changes as they come into force.

Whether all of the above will be included in the Employment Rights Bill will become clear in the next few weeks but in the meantime if you have any questions or want to discuss how to prepare your business for these changes, please get in touch.