Employment Rights Bill confirmed in King’s Speech on 17 July 2024

In the state opening of parliament King Charles outlined Labour’s plans to “make work pay”.

He said the Government would “legislate to introduce a new deal for working people to ban exploitative practices and enhance employment rights” in the form an Employment Rights Bill.

While full details of the Bill are yet to be revealed, it is likely to cover many of the workers’ rights pledges contained in Labour’s pre-election manifesto.

• Day one rights for unfair dismissal, subject to a probation period.
• Making flexible working a default right from day one (although this right did come into effect from 6 April 2024!)
• Enhanced redundancy protections for employees on or returning from maternity leave (The protection period was extended on 6 April 2024, from when an employee tells their employer they are pregnant and ends 18 months from the date of birth or the expected week of confinement.)
• A ban on employers ‘firing and rehiring’ staff under less favourable T&Cs. 
• A ban on exploitative zero-hours contracts.
• Improvements to SSP and the NMW (seeing the removal NMW rates linked to age.)
• Reform on collective redundancy consultation meaning employers must count staff across every location (potentially extending consultation periods to 30 or 45 days.)
• Greater protection for whistleblowers.
• Repeal of the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act, which allows some employers to compel employees to work during a strike.
• Changes to trade union engagement, allowing members to use secure electronic balloting.

In addition to commitments on eradicating exploitative practices, the King said the new government would publish legislation on race equality to “enshrine the full right to equal pay in law” through a new draft Equality (Race and Disability) Bill.  This Bill is likely to cover a requirement for employers to publish ethnicity and disability pay gaps if they have 250 or more staff. 

The government will also establish a body called Skills England, which will work in closer partnership with employers, and will introduce reforms to the apprenticeship levy.

King Charles added that the government would “seek to establish the appropriate legislation to place requirements on those working to develop the most powerful artificial intelligence models”.

Labour had indicated that it would look at creating a single status of ‘worker’ that would cover everyone except the genuinely self-employed, but any consultation on this is yet to be announced.

If you have any queries or are concerned about any of these proposed changes, please do not hesitate to contact us. Keep in touch, Spectra will be updating you as and when more details are announced.