As HR professionals you would, hopefully!, expect us to be interested in what the political party manifestos are saying about employment legislation in the lead up to the 2024 General Election.
We’ve analysed five manifestos to bring you a summary of what the parties are suggesting that they’ll pursue/ implement should they get elected which we think may be of interest to employers.
The Conservative Party Manifesto 2024
There is very little reference to employment or employment legislation in this manifesto. It mentions
- Apprenticeships and Skills: Plans to fund 100,000 high-quality apprenticeships for young people, paid for by reducing the number of poor-quality university degrees
- Clarification of Equality Act: Introduce legislation to clarify that ‘sex’ in the Equality Act refers to biological sex, ensuring single-sex spaces and services can be provided.
The Labour Party Manifesto 2024
Labour pledges to introduce legislation in Parliament within 100 days of entering Government to enact their New Deal for Working People . They plan to consult fully with businesses, workers and civil society on the implementation of the New Deal before passing legislation.
The employment related content of the New Deal for Working People is set out below:
• Several “day one rights”: From day 1 of employment, protection against unfair dismissal (so no longer a qualifying period of service of 2 years), entitlement to parental leave, and sick pay from the first day of employment (so the end to the 3 day waiting period before SSP is paid).
• Fair Dismissal: Ensures fair dismissal processes for reasons of capability, conduct, or redundancy, while protecting newly hired workers from being fired without cause.
• Probationary Periods: Allows employers to operate probationary periods with fair and transparent rules, but aims to prevent unjust termination during this time.
• Employment Rights Bill: Labour intends to include many reforms in an Employment Rights Bill, such as creating a single enforcement body and removing the lower earnings limit on statutory sick pay.
• Long-Term Plans: Some aspects of the New Deal, like reviewing parental leave and moving towards a single status of worker, will require more time and detailed consultation. Labour commits to addressing these in a timely manner.
• Ending Zero Hours Contracts: Banning exploitative zero hours contracts and ensuring contracts reflect regular hours worked.
• Fire and Rehire: Prohibiting the practice of ‘fire and rehire’ to protect workers’ terms and conditions.
• Single Status of Worker: The proposal aims to simplify employment status by moving towards a single status of worker, distinguishing between workers and the genuinely self-employed.
• Redundancy Rights: Strengthening by ensuring consultation rights are determined by the number of people impacted across the business rather than in one workplace.
• TUPE Protections: Enhancing existing rights and protections for workers subject to Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) processes.
• Whistleblower Protections: Updating protections, including for women reporting sexual harassment at work.
• Family-Friendly Rights: Establishing a baseline set of rights for a better work-life balance and productivity.
• Flexible Working: Making flexible working the default from day one for all workers, except where not reasonably feasible.
• Maternity Discrimination: Making it unlawful to dismiss a pregnant woman for six months after her return, except in specific circumstances.
• Bereavement Leave: Introducing the statutory right to bereavement leave for all workers.
• Right to Switch Off: Implementing the ‘right to switch off’ to prevent homes from turning into 24/7 offices.
• Genuine Living Wage: Changing the Low Pay Commission’s remit to reflect the cost of living and removing age bands for a fair wage for all adult workers.
• Fair Tips: Ensuring hospitality workers receive their tips in full and decide how tips are allocated.
The document outlines Labour’s proposals for collective bargaining as part of their New Deal for Working People:
• Fair Pay Agreements: Introduce Fair Pay Agreements in sectors like adult social care to empower workers and trade unions to negotiate fair pay and conditions.
• Strengthening Collective Bargaining: Update trade union legislation to remove restrictions on trade union activity and promote good faith negotiation and bargaining.
• Enhancing Worker Representation: Ensure worker representation in economic challenges, recognizing the role of workers’ voices and unions in a strong economy.
• Access to Workplaces for Unions: Introduce rights for trade unions to access workplaces for recruitment and organizing purposes, with regulated and responsible routes.
• Support for Trade Union Reps: Provide sufficient facilities time for trade union reps to represent and negotiate with employers, and strengthen protections against unfair dismissal and intimidation.
• Modernising Rules: Modernise rules for statutory recognition claims and simplify the process of union recognition to facilitate the right to organize through trade unions.
The document outlines Labour’s plan to update trade union legislation with the following key proposals:
• Modernising Laws: Introduce modern, secure electronic and workplace balloting for trade unions, similar to methods used by political parties and companies.
• Simplifying Recognition: Simplify the process of union recognition and statutory recognition thresholds to facilitate easier organization through trade unions.
• Enhancing Access: Grant trade unions regulated and responsible access to workplaces for recruitment and organizing purposes.
• Protecting Representatives: Strengthen protections for trade union representatives against unfair dismissal and intimidation.
• Repealing Restrictions: Repeal the Trade Union Act 2016 and other regulations that impose unnecessary restrictions on trade union activities.
The document proposes several measures to promote equality at work:
• Equal Pay: It aims to end pay discrimination and narrow the gender pay gap by implementing regulatory and enforcement units for equal pay, involving trade unions.
• Menopause Support: Employers with more than 250 employees must produce Menopause Action Plans to support affected employees.
• Terminal Illness: It advocates for security and decency for terminally ill workers, encouraging employers and trade unions to support the Dying To Work Charter for best practices in employing workers with terminal illness.
The document proposes several measures to address equal pay:
• Pay Gap Reporting: Large firms will be required to publish action plans to close gender pay gaps and include outsourced workers in their reporting. It proposes mandatory publication of ethnicity and disability pay gaps for employers with more than 250 staff, alongside gender pay gap reporting, to address inequalities.
• Strengthening Enforcement: Establish a regulatory and enforcement unit for equal pay with trade union involvement.
• Outsourcing and Equal Pay: Ensure outsourcing cannot be used to avoid paying equal pay to women.
• Tribunal System Improvements: Improve access to pay justice by addressing employment tribunal backlogs and making the equal pay framework more accessible.
The proposals on enforcement in the document are:
• Single Enforcement Body: Establish a single body to enforce workers’ rights, with powers to inspect workplaces and take action against exploitation.
• Employment Tribunals: Improve tribunals for quicker, more effective resolutions and extend the time limit for employment claims from three to six months.
• Collective Grievances: Enable employees to collectively raise grievances to ACAS, allowing for collective action against workplace issues.
• Safer Workplaces: Review health and safety regulations to modernise them, ensuring they reflect the modern workplace and protect against harassment.
The Liberal Democrat Party Manifesto 2024
The Liberal Democrats’ manifesto incudes a significant number of proposals that would affect employment rights:
• Maternity and Parental Pay: The manifesto promises to double Statutory Maternity and Shared Parental Pay to £350 per week and increase paternity leave pay to 90% of earnings.
• Statutory Sick Pay (SSP): They propose making SSP available to more than 1 million workers earning less than £123 a week, from the first day of missing work.
• Dependent Contractor Status: A new ‘dependent contractor’ employment status is to be established, providing basic rights between employment and self-employment.
• Zero-Hour Contracts: They suggest a 20% higher minimum wage for people on zero-hour contracts during normal demand and the right to request a fixed-hours contract after 12 months.
• Gig Economy Pensions: The manifesto includes a review of pension rules to ensure gig economy workers don’t lose out and that portability between roles is protected.
• Parental Rights: All parental pay and leave are to become day-one rights, extended to adoptive parents, kinship carers, and self-employed parents.
• Fathers’ Leave: An extra use-it-or-lose-it month for fathers and partners is proposed, paid at 90% of earnings.
• Parental Leave Policies: Large employers would be required to publish their parental leave and pay policies.
• Neonatal Care Leave: The introduction of paid neonatal care leave is included.
• Employment Data Publication: Large employers would need to monitor and publish data on gender, ethnicity, disability, and LGBT+ employment levels, pay gaps, and progression.
• Name-Blind Recruitment: They aim to extend the use of name-blind recruitment processes in the public sector and encourage their use in the private sector.
• Neurodiversity Support: Additional support and advice to employers on neurodiversity in the workplace are promised, along with a strategy to tackle discrimination faced by neurodiverse individuals.
• Disability Employment Gap: A targeted strategy to support disabled people into work, with specialist disability employment support, is part of the manifesto.
• Access to Work Scheme: They plan to raise awareness of the Access to Work scheme and simplify the application process.
• Adjustment Passports: Introduction of ‘Adjustment Passports’ to record the adjustments a disabled person has received, ensuring support and equipment stay with the person if they change jobs.
The Green Party Manifesto 2024
The Green Party Manifesto has five areas relate to employment. These are:
• Workers’ Rights: Advocating for the repeal of anti-union legislation and the introduction of a Charter of Workers’ Rights, with a focus on the right to strike and union recognition.
• Pay Ratio: Implementing a maximum 10:1 pay ratio between the highest and lowest paid employees in all organizations.
• Minimum Wage: Increasing the minimum wage to £15 an hour for all workers, regardless of age, and offsetting costs for small businesses.
• Employment Equality: Ensuring equal employment rights from day one, including for gig economy and zero-hours contract workers, and advocating for a four-day work week.
• Four day working week: There is simply a mention of moving to a four day working week without any detail.
The Brexit (Reform) Party Manifesto 2024
This Manifesto is called a “Contract with the British People”. There appears to be no reference to employment rights or changes to any employment legislation.
Like everyone else, we’ll await 5 July 2024 with interest before we start planning for what may, or may not, be coming down the track.
If you’d like to speak to a professional HR Consultant about how you can ensure your business responds to any employment law changes successfully, then please contact Metis HR today. Our HR experts have decades of expertise in this very area, so they can advise you with confidence.
Speak to Metis HR today to discuss how we can help you, by using the contact form on our website, emailing us at info@metishr.co.uk or phoning us on 01706 565 332.
