Clifford Chance

King's Speech: Enhancing employment rights

17 July 2024

As expected, the legislative agenda set out in the King's Speech included a number of employment law reforms. The Government will bring forward legislation to "ban exploitative practices and enhance employment rights" this will take the form of the Employment Rights' Bill (Employment Bill). In addition, the government will bring forward the Equality (Race and Disability) Bill (Equality Bill), to 'enshrine in law the full right to equal pay for ethnic minorities and disabled people and to introduce mandatory ethnicity and disability pay reporting'.

The substance of the changes and the relevant timeframe will emerge when the Employment Bill and Equality Bill are published. The Employment Bill will be introduced within the first 100 days of Government, the timeframe for the Equality Bill is unclear.

Labour's Plan to Make Work Pay paper and other manifesto commitments set out its proposed employment law reforms. The Employment Bill and the Equality Bill will provide the legislative means of implementing some of those changes. It is anticipated that in some cases consultation exercises will need to be undertaken before the final form of legislation can be determined; for example, in relation to the proposal for a single employment status. Some of the proposed reforms are noticeably absent in the Briefing notes to the King's Speech including the right to switch off, whistleblowing reforms and changes to collective redundancy consultation. That is not to say however that they are not on the reform agenda.

This briefing takes a high-level look at the employment law reforms in the Plan to Make Work Pay paper and manifesto commitments that will inform the content of the Employment Bill and the Equality Bill, the potential implications for employers, current areas of uncertainty and the preparatory steps that should be considered.

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