The King’s Speech: what will be in the Employment Bill?

In Wednesday’s King’s Speech, the Government laid out the legislative framework for their first few months in government. The speech itself only mentioned “legislation to ban exploitative practices and enhance employment rights” very briefly. However, the briefing notes which accompanied it gave the detail of how Labour’s Plan to Make Work Pay: Delivering A New Deal for Working People will be implemented, via a Employment Rights Bill to be introduced in the first 100 days of a Labour government. Here are the notes in full:

Employment Rights Bill

“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”

● This Government’s Plan to Make Work Pay will create a new partnership between business, trade unions and working people and is fundamental to our growth mission. The Employment Rights Bill, to be introduced within the first one hundred days, is a significant step towards delivering this ambition and represents the biggest upgrade to workers’ rights in a generation.

● In addition to this Bill, we will deliver a genuine living wage that accounts for the cost of living and we will remove the discriminatory age bands to ensure every adult worker benefits. These changes will improve the lives of working people across the country.

● We will work in close partnership with trade unions and business to deliver our New Deal and invite their views on how best we can put our plans into practice.

What does the Bill do?

The Government is committed to delivering its New Deal for Working People in full. The Bill will deliver on policies as set out in the Plan to Make Work Pay that require primary legislation to implement. The Plan includes commitments to the following:

• 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. This will end ‘one sided’ flexibility, ensuring all jobs provide a baseline level of security and predictability.
• ending the scourges of ‘Fire and Rehire’ and ‘Fire and Replace’ by reforming the law to provide effective remedies and replacing the previous Government’s inadequate statutory code.
• making parental leave, sick pay and protection from unfair dismissal available from day 1 on the job for all workers. We will continue to ensure employers can operate probationary periods to assess new hires.
• strengthening Statutory Sick Pay by removing the lower earnings limit to make it available to all workers as well as 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, to reflect the modern workplace.
• strengthening 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.
• 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, following review, assess how and to what extent 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, removing unnecessary restrictions on trade union activity – including the previous Government’s approach to minimum service levels – and ensuring industrial relations are based around good faith negotiation and bargaining.
• simplifying the process of statutory recognition and introduce a regulated route to ensure workers and union members have a reasonable right to access a union within workplaces.

Territorial extent and application

● The Bill will extend and apply to Great Britain.

Key facts

● The UK typically ranks highly in international indicators of labour market flexibility and there are around 4 million more people in work than in 2010. However, there has also been an increase in the number of people in less secure forms of work, including the number of zero hours contracts rising to over 1 million over the last decade. The Bill will provide additional security and predictability for these workers.

● Extending protections to workers from day one will encourage more workers to switch jobs, which is associated with higher wages and productivity growth. Wage rises are around usually three-times higher for those who move jobs compared to those who do not.

● High employment and low unemployment have not coincided with increasing productivity, or wages. UK productivity growth since the global financial crisis has been slow, and lower than the G7 average.

● The UK typically ranks highly in international indicators of labour market flexibility and there are around 4 million more people in work than in 2010. However, there has also been an increase in the number of people in less secure forms of work, including the number of zero hours contracts rising to over 1 million over the last decade. The Bill will provide additional security and predictability for these workers.

● Real wage growth has been flat, with real average weekly earnings only just returning to 2008 levels. Much of our recent economic growth has come from growth in the size of the labour market itself (e.g. through increased migration), while GDP per capita has flatlined.

● The Bill will help to ensure industrial relations are based around good faith negotiation and bargaining with the Government committed to implementing a genuine living wage for workers.

● The number of workers inactive due to long-term sickness is at a historic high (around 2.8 million). Statutory Sick Pay is complex, outdated and fails to adequately support those who need it. Currently 1.5m people earn below the lower earnings limit (£123 per week) and people do not currently receive any payment for the first three days of a sickness absence, disproportionately affecting the lowest paid workers working part time, or in low paid multiple jobs.

● The national gender pay gap still stands at 14.3 per cent. There are effective actions employers could be taking but in 2018/19 only an estimated 52 per cent of employers published an action plan. One in ten women who worked during the menopause have left a job due to their symptoms. In addition, a quarter of reported sexual harassment in England and Wales takes place at work.