Measures outlined in the Bill include:
▪ Zero-hours contracts. Employees will have the right to a guaranteed hours contract which reflects the hours they regularly work over a ‘reference period’. This will apply to those on zerohours and low-hours contracts. Workers will also gain the right to reasonable notice of shift cancellations, and payment for cancelled, moved, or curtailed shifts. The Government will consult on how zero-hours contracts can ‘effectively and appropriately’ apply to agency workers and may amend the Bill during its passage to reflect this.
▪ Flexible working. Employees will have the right to request flexible working arrangements from day one, which employers may only refuse on specified grounds, including cost; meeting customer demand; reorganising work; recruitment; quality; performance; deficiencies in the proposed arrangement; and planned structural changes.
▪ Statutory sick pay. The Bill removes the qualifying period for statutory sick pay, making it payable on the first day of illness. It also removes the lower earnings limit, giving the Secretary of State the power to set a percentage of the full statutory rate to be paid to lower earners. The percentage rates for statutory sick pay will be added to the Bill during its passage following consultation.
▪ Parental, paternity, and bereavement leave. The Bill gives employees the day one right to parental leave, paternity leave (including the ability to take paternity leave following a period of shared parental leave), and expands the scope of bereavement leave to cover the loss of loved ones beyond children and stillbirths.
▪ Harassment. Employers will be required to take ‘all’ reasonable steps to protect employees from harassment at work; take reasonable steps to protect them from harassment by third parties; take reasonable steps to protect employees from sexual harassment; and provide protection to disclosures of sexual harassment.
▪ Unfair dismissal. The Bill removes the qualifying period of two years before employees are entitled to protection from summary dismissal. It provides power for the Secretary of State to set a statutory probation period —with the Government minded to set this at nine months — and to set a lighter-touch process for dismissal during the probation period. ▪ Collective redundancy. The Bill provides for redundancies by a single employer across multiple workplaces to be considered collectively rather than individually, and extends protections specifically to GB-linked shipping services.
▪ Equality action plans. Regulations will require employers with 250 or more employees to produce an equality action plan setting out what steps they are taking on gender equality, including how they are addressing the gender pay gap and supporting workers experiencing menopause.
▪ Sector pay arrangements. The Bill provides specific sector pay arrangements for school support staff and adult social care workers, including creating a statutory negotiating body for adult social care.
Trade unions.
The Bill provides for an extensive expansion of the rights of trade unions, including repealing all ‘anti-trade union’ legislation passed since 2010. Employees will be informed of their right to join a union when they begin their employment and unions will have extended rights of access to workplaces.
• Recognition. The Bill will make the recognition process for trade unions easier, removing the requirement at the application stage for a union to demonstrate that there is likely to be majority support for recognition, removing the 40% support threshold at the recognition ballot stage, and consulting on reducing the 10% application threshold for a union branch to be recognised.
• Finances. The Bill reverts to an ‘opt-out’ system for union member contributions to political funds, rather than the current ‘opt-in’ system, makes it easier for public sector organisations to directly pay trade union political subscriptions, and removes the requirement for the Certification Officer to report on costs from industrial action and political expenditure by trade unions in their annual reports.
• Representatives. Employers will be required to provide trade union representative employees (including equality representatives) with time off, accommodation, and facilities for their trade union-related duties or related training.
• Blacklists. The Secretary of State will have the power to make regulations prohibiting the sale, distribution, or use of lists of trade union members to discriminate against them.
• Ballots. The Bill provides that only a simple majority of those voting in a strike ballot is needed in support of the proposed measure to win. It also notes that the Secretary of State has existing powers to expand the means of voting for members — including through electronic voting.
• Picketing. The Bill enables easier trade union supervision of pickets.
• Dismissal. The Bill gives employees greater protections against dismissal or detriment as a result of taking industrial action.
• Certification Officer. The Bill removes a number of the powers of the Certification Officer, including relating to the enforcement of provisions around annual reports, removing certain direct investigatory powers (and instead requiring them to be exercised on the application of a member of the union), removing the power to impose financial penalties, removing the power to impose a levy on unions, and returning rights of appeal to the Employment Appeal Tribunal.
▪ Fair Work Agency. The Bill will bring together existing enforcement functions, including regulations for employment agencies and businesses, the unpaid employment tribunal award penalty scheme, enforcement of the National Minimum Wage, statutory sick pay, the licensing regime for businesses operating as ‘gangmasters’ and incorporates a wider range of employment 4 rights, such as holiday pay, bringing them under the auspices of a new, single regulator, the Fair Work Agency.
Wider reforms
Some measures from the Plan to Make Work Pay will not need primary legislation to deliver, including:
▪ Tightening the rules on unpaid internships where the Government will launch a Call for Evidence by the end of 2024.
▪ Allowing the use of modern and secure electronic balloting for trade union statutory ballots where the Government will launch working groups by the end of 2024.
▪ Fair Payment Code to tackle late payments for self-employed workers.
▪ A right to switch off will be delivered through a statutory Code of Practice. The implementation of additional measures will happen alongside and after the passage of the Bill. In some cases, this will include government amendments to the legislation at a later stage in the process.
Other non-legislative measures will include removing age bands for the genuine living wage, a Dying to Work Charter to support workers with terminal illnesses, modernising health and safety guidance, enacting the socioeconomic duty, ensuring the Public Sector Equality Duty provisions cover all parties exercising public functions and, developing menopause guidance for employers and guidance on health and wellbeing.
Some reforms will take place in the long term (with the process starting from Autumn 2024) — which the Government has indicated will include:
▪ Parental Leave Review — alongside measures to make this a day one right in the Bill, the Government will conduct a comprehensive review of the parental leave system.
▪ Carers’ Leave Review — examining the benefits of introducing paid carers’ leave, whilst being mindful of the impact of changes on employers, particularly small employers. ▪ Surveillance technologies and negotiations with trade unions and staff representatives — consulting on implementing these measures.
▪ Single ‘worker’ status — consulting on a ‘simpler framework’ that differentiates between workers and the genuinely self-employed.
▪ Strengthen protections for the self-employed — through a right to written contract, extending blacklisting protections, and extending health and safety protections, which will be consulted on in the single ‘worker’ status consultation.
▪ Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) (TUPE) — launching a Call for Evidence on TUPE regulations and processes.
▪ Reviewing health and safety guidance and regulations — including looking at neurodiversity awareness in the workplace, how to modernise guidance including regarding extreme temperature, and provisions for those experiencing symptoms of long Covid.
▪ Raising collective grievances — consulting with Acas on enabling employees to collectively raise grievances about conduct in their place of work.
▪ Wider reforms alongside the new National Procurement Policy Statement such as ensuring social value is mandatory in contract design, using public procurement to raise standards on employment rights, and ensuring that public bodies must carry out a quick and proportionate public interest test. This will start ahead of the commencement of the Procurement Act 2023.
▪ Extending the Freedom of Information Act to private companies that hold public contracts, and to publicly funded employers. Next steps Second Reading of the Bill will take place on October 21.
Alongside this, the Government will set the timetable for the next legislative stages for the Bill, including when it will be subject to line-by-line scrutiny at Committee Stage. From this point on, the Government will have the option of introducing its own amendments to add further specifics to the new powers proposed in the Bill.
The Government expects to begin consulting on aspects of the reforms in 2025, ‘seeking significant input from all stakeholders’, with the vast majority of reforms taking effect no earlier than 2026. Specifically on unfair dismissal, the Government has said any changes will take effect no sooner than Autumn 2026.
The Government has indicated where stakeholder engagement suggests more time is needed to enact policies, this will be taken into consideration. In terms of implementation, the Government has confirmed that this will happen in stages and measures will not all be brought in simultaneously.
Similarly, the Government will look to stagger consultations to avoid them all taking place in tandem. Further details on the policies implemented through further regulations and code of practices will be provided after Royal Assent
