New Government: New employment rights and support for parents generally?

Written by Vicki Fagan, Associate in the Employment Law Team at Myerson Solicitors & member of the pro-parent committee

4 July 2024 saw a landside majority win for the Labour Party. Their election manifesto proclaimed that employment law in Britain is no longer fit for the modern economy and in May 2024, Labour detailed its plans to “make work pay” by delivering a “new deal” for working people within the first 100 days of government.

The King’s Speech took place on 17 July 2024, which detailed a number of proposals for the next session of Parliament, particularly in relation to employment rights and wider support systems in relation to children’s wellbeing.

Below, we consider some of our new government’s key pledges and what this could mean for working parents.

Day 1 Employment Rights

Unfair dismissal

At the forefront of the government’s agenda is its proposal to remove qualifying service for employees to raise unfair dismissal claims to an employment tribunal. The law currently stipulates that only employees with two years’ service or more (subject to one week’s grace period) have the right to not be unfairly dismissed but under the new Labour government’s proposals, this right would exist from the first day of employment. If implemented, this would represent the greatest protection for employees in this area since unfair dismissal legislation was introduced in 1971 and would provide working parents with a greater sense of job-security.

Details remain uncertain, although the government has previously confirmed this would not prevent fair dismissals, including during a “probationary period with fair and transparent rules and processes”. Indeed, the background briefing notes on the King’s Speech, published by the Prime Minister’s Office, states that the government will continue to ensure employers can still operate probationary periods to assess new hires. As such, it is envisaged that the use of probationary periods (and the circumstances in which such periods can be extended) will become a key component of employment contracts moving forward, with recruitment processes becoming a lot more robust.

Further detail is likely to be included in the proposed Employment Rights Bill. However, given the government has stated that a full consultation will take place and parliament’s upcoming summer recess, it does not seem likely that this will be in force until later in 2025, but we await clarification on this.

Statutory Sick pay (SSP)

Parents are often hit by the multitude of germs that children bring home from nurseries and schools and, having had to take time to look after their child, some simply can’t afford to take time off work to get themselves better.

The government has proposed to strengthen existing SSP provisions by removing the lower earnings limit for eligibility along with the waiting period (currently at £123.00 per week and 3 days respectively.) As a result, workers would be entitled to payment on the first day of sickness, regardless of earnings. It is anticipated that these reforms could be introduced very quickly, although this is yet to be confirmed and, again, we will see further detail provided in the Employment Rights Bill.

However, it remains to be seen whether the government will increase the rate of SSP, currently £116.75 per week (as of 6 April 2024), which is low compared with other countries.

Parental leave

The government has also committed to improving access to “parental leave” on the basis that it “does not currently support working families” and to make this a “day one right”. It’s not clear what is meant by the reference to “parental leave” – whether this means parental leave generally (maternity, paternity, adoption and shared parental leave, for example) and the corresponding statutory pay or whether it means the current legal right to parental leave (which is the right for employees who have been employed for a year or more to take up to 18 weeks’ unpaid leave in respect of a child at any time before they turn 18).

We look forward to seeing more detail on this in the Employment Rights Bill.

Strengthened protections for new mothers

The proposal is to make it unlawful to dismiss a woman, who has had a baby, for six months after her return to work, except in specific circumstances. Whilst this is a step in the right direction for the many pregnancy and maternity discrimination lobbyists, there is currently no clarification as to what is meant by “specific circumstances”. We expect to see more detail on this in the proposed Employment Rights Bill.

Employment Tribunal time limits and compensation

The government proposed to amend the “arbitrary” and “arcane” limitation period for bringing claims to the employment tribunal from 3 months to 6 months (which will match the limitation periods for statutory redundancy pay and equal pay claims).

According to the background briefing notes on the King’s speech, this does not currently appear to be part of the proposed future reforms.

Similarly, there had been previous reference in an earlier green paper to the government removing the statutory cap on compensation, presumably in relation to unfair dismissal, but this was not mentioned at all in its “New Deal”, nor was it mentioned in the King’s speech and so it remains to be seen whether this is something that will materialise in the future or whether this is no longer part of the proposed reforms.

Pay

Despite advancements in the national minimum wage in recent years, the government proposes to take this further still by ensuring the national minimum wage reflects the cost of living. There is also a commitment to “remove the discriminatory age bands to ensure every adult worker benefits” but with no clarity over who is classed as an “adult”, it’s difficult to know whether this means that anyone over the age of 18 will be entitled to the full £11.44 rate (the rate that currently applies – from April 2024 – to those aged 21 and over).

Work-life balance

Flexible working

Further to the recent developments in flexible working requests (which became a day one right from 6 April 2024), the government has committed to extend these rights further, proposing that employers will be required to accommodate flexible working “as far as is reasonable”. Details on this remain unclear but any measures are anticipated to reduce employers’ abilities to restrict flexible working arrangements.

Right to switch off

With the rise of homeworking in the post-pandemic-era, the distinction between the office and home has become blurred, meaning it’s even harder for working parents to manage the juggle. As a means of combatting this, the government originally proposed to afford employees with the “right to switch off” which would prevent employers from contacting workers outside of working hours. This isn’t something that was specifically detailed in the King’s speech and so it remains to be seen whether this is something that will materialise in the future. However, there are similar models in Ireland and Belgium that could be followed in due course.

Childcare

The government pledged to make childcare more accessible, including creating over three thousand new nursey classes across England and converting spare school classrooms into spaces for nurseries. This isn’t something that was specifically detailed in the background briefing notes on the King’s Speech. Something that was detailed, was the pledge to provide free breakfast clubs in every primary school in England. This will form part of the proposed Children’s Wellbeing Bill, which, if implemented will give parents the choice and flexibility for an earlier start to the working day.

Another item proposed in the Children’s Wellbeing Bill is to propose legislation to limit the number of branded items of uniform and PE kits that a school can require. Again, this will be detailed further in the Bill but the aim is to bring costs for parents down and remove the barriers from children accessing sport and other school activities.

What happens next?

It is useful to remember that before being signed into law, any Bill requires assent from both the House of Commons and Lords. This can take a great deal of time and means that further amendments could be made to the current proposals. Additionally, in relation to some of the proposals, it may be necessary to enact subordinate legislation or statutory codes of practice to enable the new rights to take full effect.

In the meantime, we await further information and clarity from the government on the proposed reforms.