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The Employment Rights Bill- what does this actually mean?

On 10 October 2024, the government introduced the Employment Rights Bill 2024-25 (Bill) into Parliament, meeting its commitment to introduce the Bill within 100 days of entering office. The Bill brings forward 28 individual employment reforms, some of these reforms are sketchy and simply provide ministers with the power to make regulations, with certain other proposals to be padded out after consultation. The Bill will have its second reading on 21 October 2024, and thereafter it will need to progress through both Houses of Parliament, and then receive Royal Assent. It is likely that most of the provisions will therefore not come in to effect until 2026 and even then may change along the way.

Image of the Houses of Parliament

The Employment Rights Bill was labelled as a generational change in employment law, so what actually was proposed?

  • Unfair dismissal will become a day-one right, subject to a new statutory probationary period, and the two-year qualifying period will disappear. Ministers will make regulations covering dismissal during the “initial period”, after consultation. The detail around the statutory probationary periods is yet to be revealed, but we do know the governments stated preference is for a maximum nine- month period of probation. Unlike now, some sort of process will have to be followed for dismissals during this initial period. This will be a significant change to present and employers will want a simple process. Employee representatives however, will not want probationary periods to be seen as qualifying periods for unfair dismissal via the back door.
  • The Bill will restrict employers’ ability to “fire and rehire” by making it automatically unfair to dismiss an employee for refusing to agree to a change in their contract of employment. An exception will be made where the employer can show evidence of financial difficulties and demonstrate that the need to make the change in contractual terms was not reasonably avoidable. This proposal is a significant shift away from the current law, where employers simply need to show a good business reason requiring the change to terms to avoid an unfair dismissal. It is likely that these proposals will be contested by employers during the consultation, as they do not reflect the fact that employers may need to fire and rehire for other reasons than purely financial ones, such as changes in the law for example.
  • We were already aware that from the 26th October 2024, a new duty to prevent sexual harassment in the workplace by taking “reasonable steps” was coming in. The Bill will further expand this duty requiring employers to take “all reasonable steps” to prevent employees from being sexually harassed at work. The government have reverted to the original proposal for this duty, before it was watered down during parliamentary debate. This is a significant step up for employers to meet the duty, especially since it will be directly enforceable by individuals. The Bill will also reintroduce employer liability for third party harassment. In due course, regulations will outline what constitutes “reasonable steps” for both the proactive duty and the third part harassment. The steps that may be specified include:
    • Carrying out assessments of a specified description,
    • publishing plans or policies of a specified description,
    • steps relating to the reporting of sexual harassment, and
    • steps relating to the handling of complaints.
  • There was much talk about Flexible Working becoming the default position under this Bill. However, in a departure from what was promised what the Bill actually does is allow employers to be only able to refuse a request for flexible working where it is reasonable to do so in relation to one of the statutory reasons for refusal. So in effect the only thing that has changed is “reasonableness”. This not only applies to the process followed in dealing with flexible working requests, but will also now apply to the reason for refusing any such request. When employers refuse requests, they’ll need to explain the reason for the refusal and why that is reasonable. Therefore, despite a lot of attention and focus on what the landscape of flexible working will be under the new government and fear that flexible working would become a right, this proposal in fact does very little to change the existing position.
  • Statutory Sick Pay will be available from the first sick day rather than the fourth day. The lower earnings limit of £123 a week will be removed, but the Bill sets out a lower level of sick pay for lower earners.
  • Paternity leave will become a day-one right (currently requires 26 weeks’ service).
  • Unpaid parental leave will become a day-one right (currently requires one year’s service).
  • Unpaid bereavement leave will become a day-one right.

The above is simply a snap shot of the main provisions proposed, there will be various consultations launched and much may change along the way. For now employers need to keep a keen eye on developments (we will keep you posted) and start to reflect on how some of these changes may impact their business.

For help and advice on this or any employment issues within the travel industry, contact;

ami@travlaw.co.uk

or call;

0113 258 0033

 

This article was originally published on: 15 October 2024

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