UK govt plans biggest changes to employment law for a generation

In the UK, the year ahead is likely to be dominated by the newly elected Labour government’s ambitious reform agenda. Labour has pledged to introduce an Employment Rights Bill by 12 October 2024, which will set out the most significant changes to UK employment law for a generation. 

• Labour’s proposals include a commitment to remove minimum periods of qualifying service from a number of ‘basic’ employment rights. Most significantly, Labour has promised to make unfair dismissal protection a ‘day 1’ right, scrapping the current two year period of qualifying service required to bring claims in Great Britain. While Labour has said that probation periods will still be permitted, this will nonetheless represent a major increase in workers’ rights, which will require many employers to review their performance management processes and policies for new hires. 
• The Employment Rights Bill will also significantly empower trade unions. The Labour government has promised to introduce new rights of access for unions, which are likely to give them a general right to access workplaces without management consent for the first time. Labour will also make it easier for unions to secure statutory recognition and repeal the restrictions on industrial action brought in by successive Conservative governments since 2010. 
• Other worker-friendly reforms to UK employment law will include a ban on zero-hour contracts, a new ‘right to disconnect’, extending equal pay legislation to cover ethnicity and disability and far-reaching reforms to employment status. As with all of these proposals, we are eagerly awaiting further detail from the government in the coming months. 
• In addition, it remains to be seen whether the government will amend the legislation governing ‘UK EWCs.’ As a reminder, the Court of Appeal’s decision in easyJet last year has meant that a small number of UK business are required to operate two EWCs: one under EU law and a second ‘legacy’ EWC under UK law, though the recent decision in HSBC has helpfully established that this obligation only applies to businesses operating EWCs under the UK subsidiary requirements. We now understand that the HSBC EWC will not be appealing this decision, so it would seem that only three undertakings are caught by the easyJet ruling, easyJet, the British Council, and the Two Sisters Food Group.
• In May, the previous Conservative government launched a consultation on proposals to fix this legislative mess by scrapping the UK’s legal framework for EWCs altogether. However, since coming into power, the new Labour government has not said what, if any, plans it has to reform the legislation governing UK EWCs.