Employment law is set for a major shake-up under Keir Starmer - Innes Clark

The headline proposals flowing from the New Deal include:

• Making the right not to be unfairly dismissed a day one right.
• Banning “exploitative” zero hour contracts.
• Restricting fire and rehire practices.
• Making flexible working the default from day one for all workers “except where it is not reasonably feasible”.
• Introducing a new right to “switch off” outside of working hours.

The Labour Party manifesto also promised to “strengthen the collective voice of workers, including through their trade unions” and their election win will see the repeal of the legislation requiring minimum service levels during certain strike action, as well as the introduction of steps to make it easier for unions to gain recognition and to access workplaces for recruitment purposes. Changing the trigger point for requiring collective redundancy consultation (where 20 or more people are proposed to be made redundant from one establishment in a 90-day period) from the number of people affected in one establishment (generally speaking one workplace) to the number of people affected across a whole business will mean that collective consultation will be required far more often.

The Labour Party has also promised to strengthen rights to equal pay as well as strengthening protections from maternity and menopause discrimination and sexual harassment. It also plans to consult on the vexed issue of employment status with a possible move towards “a single status of worker”.

Other significant changes to be expected include:

• The qualifying service for both sick pay and parental leave to be scrapped.
• The time limit for raising an Employment Tribunal claim to be extended from three to six months
• Making it unlawful for an employer to dismiss a woman who is pregnant and for six months after her return from maternity leave “except in specific circumstances”.
• Introducing a requirement for large employers to produce ethnicity and disability pay gap reports.
• Removing age bands for the national minimum wage so that all adult workers are entitled to the same minimum pay

In terms of timescales, the Labour Party has promised a new Employment Rights Bill during its first 100 days of government. Realistically, though, given the promise of a “full and comprehensive consultation on the implementation of the New Deal”, this will be draft legislation only, not immediate change. Two things that the Labour Party has expressed an intention to act on quickly, though, are the creation of a single enforcement body to enforce certain basic worker rights, including minimum wage and holiday pay, and the removal of the lower earnings limit for statutory sick pay.

As with all manifesto proposals, the devil will be in the detail. Employers, employees and workers will be very interested to see how these proposals make it onto the statute books, in what form and in what timescale.

Innes Clark is head of MFMac’s Employment Law Team.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​