What would a Labour win in the 2024 UK General Election mean for Employment Law?

What would a Labour win in the 2024 UK General Election mean for Employment Law?

The UK is set to go to the polls on 4^th July 2024, and the outcome of this General Election may have some significant implications for Employment Law. This will likely be the case if, as many commentators predict, the UK public votes for change and we see a new Labour government.

That’s because, if it wins the election, the Labour party has pledged to introduce a ‘New Deal for Working People’ and has made this a central part of its legislative plan should the party be installed in Government on 4th July.

Gareth Matthews, Head of Employment at mlplaw, analyses the promises made by the Labour party going into the election and the sweeping changes which we may see over the months and years ahead.

Labour’s ‘New Deal’

The Labour party has recently published a lengthy document, entitled ‘Labour’s Plan to Make Work Pay – Delivering a New Deal for Working People’, which includes the following proposed changes to existing employment law:

• Ending ‘one-sided flexibility’, by banning the cynical or exploitative use of zero hours and introducing a right for employees to be given a contract which reflects their regular working hours (using a 12-week reference period);
• Creating a single status of ‘worker’, thereby removing the distinction between employees (who enjoy the full suite of employment rights) and workers (who only receive certain protections). Labour’s aim here appears to be to remove the perceived ability of business to exploit the confusion between these different statuses in order to limit the rights enjoyed by them people who work for them, typically in the so-called ‘gig economy’;
• Banning ‘fire and hire’ practices as a way to change employment contracts, as recently used by P&O (to much criticism and negative publicity);
• Making protection from unfair dismissal a day one right, rather than one which requires the employee to have at least two years’ service. This change has the potential to dramatically increase the number of Employment Tribunal claims faced by employers, and will mean that robust performance management processes will be required for underperforming recruits from an early stage. Additionally, although Labour indicate that they will still allow the use of probationary periods, it is not immediately clear how this will work in practice given this proposed change;
• Basing the obligation to carry out collective redundancy consultation on the number of employees who are impacted across the business, rather than at a single workplace;
• Strengthening TUPE and whistleblowing protections;
• Making flexible working a default from day 1, except where it is not reasonably feasible;
• Making it unlawful to dismiss a woman within six months of her return from maternity leave, except in specific circumstances;
• Introducing a right to ‘switch off’ from work;
• Expanding pay gap reporting to include ethnicity and disability pay gap reporting (for employers with 250 employees), in addition to existing obligation in relation to the gender pay gap;
• Implementing a ‘genuine living wage’, based on the cost of living rather than national earnings;
• Increasing the time limits for submitting employment tribunal claims to six months (most claims currently being subject to a three-month limitation period) and removing statutory cap on compensation in employment tribunal claims; and
• Simplifying the trade union recognition process and increasing trade union access to workplaces.

When to expect these changes

If it wins, Labour has committed to passing a new Employment Bill within the first 100 days following the election. However, it is highly unlikely that this will be enough time to introduce all of the legislative changes required to implement the proposals set out above.

It appears we can, however, expect some of the simpler proposals to be introduced within this time frame, not least in order to provide an early demonstration of Labour’s stated commitment to improving rights for working people.

Here at mlplaw, we will certainly be keeping a keen eye on how the proposals outlined above develop, so please stay tuned for future blogs on this topic.

If you would like any detailed advice in connection with any of the issues raised above please don’t hesitate to contact the team at mlpaw. You can reach us at employment@mlplaw.co.uk or @HRHeroUK or on 0161 926 9969.