Since the announcement of the General Election, which will take place on 4 July 2024, both the Conservative and Labour parties have announced their respective manifestos.

Both manifestos contain some interesting proposals relating to employment law, which will no doubt have ramifications for businesses, employees and the self-employed alike. The key policies relating to employment law for the main two parties are summarised below.

The Labour Party’s manifesto confirms the intention to implement “Labour’s Plan to Make Work Pay: Delivering a New Deal for Working People”. This plan sets out a raft of radical changes to employment law, which Labour confirm they intend to introduce within 100 days of entering government. The key proposals are as follows:

• Day 1 employment rights and time limits – Labour propose to afford all workers protection from unfair dismissal from day one of employment, whereas currently this protection is not available for employees until completion of two years’ service. This change would inevitably increase unfair dismissal claims against employers. However, Labour’s plan clarifies that this change would not prevent employers from having probationary periods with fair and transparent rules and processes, meaning it will be important for employers to ensure their contracts contain clear and flexible probationary periods. In addition, Labour propose to extend the time limits for bringing claims in the Employment Tribunal from the current three months, to six months.
• Employment status – Labour propose a move towards a two-tier system for defining employment status, which would comprise of “worker” and “self-employed”. This would represent a significant change, as it would mean that many more people gain entitlement to additional employment rights.
• Zero hours contracts – As part of Labour’s commitment to remove ‘one sided flexibility’ in employment relationships, they intend to ban “exploitative” zero hours contracts.
• Fire and rehire – The code of practice on fire and rehire is due to come into force on 18 July 2024. The Labour party say that it is inadequate and will be replaced with a strengthened code of practice with the aim of ending the practice of fire and rehire.
• Right to disconnect and flexible working – The Labour plan includes a proposal to ensure flexible working is the default position for all workers ‘except where it is not reasonably feasible’. Furthermore, employees will be given the right to disconnect from work, to prevent the lines between home life and work life from becoming blurred.
• Redundancy – Labour intend to reform redundancy rights and protections. The proposal includes ensuring the collective redundancy consultation process is determined by the number of people impacted across the business, rather than in specific workplaces (which is the current position).

In comparison to Labour proposals, the Conservative manifesto represents a more “business as usual” approach to employment law. However, they have made some interesting pledges:

• National Insurance – The Conservatives plan to reduce employee National Insurance contributions by 2p.
• Apprenticeships – As part of a plan to support young people in the workplace, the Conservatives intend to fund 100,000 high quality apprenticeships for young people.
• National service – One of the Conservative’s more controversial proposals is the intention to introduce mandatory National Service for all school leavers at 18, with a choice between a competitive placement in the military, or civic service roles.

Source: Lexology