General Election 2024
Health employment law related commitments
Further to our recent article on What will workers’ rights look like after the impending general election, we provide an overview of the main health employment law related commitments from different party manifestos.
If the opinion polls are accurate and the UK has a Labour government with a substantial majority on 5th July 2024 there are likely to be a number of significant employment law developments to get to grips with, especially in the areas of family-friendly rights and equality protections/obligations.
Whatever the outcome there are going to be changes to the employment law landscape.
Labour
Labour’s manifesto reaffirms its commitment to make work pay and proposes to introduce legislation within 100 days of entering government, with a pledge to consult with trade unions and businesses before passing any legislation. Key points to note are:-
| Issue | Detail |
| Zero hours contracts | ban zero hours contracts so employment contracts reflect the number of hours regularly worked (via a 12-week reference period) and introduce anti-avoidance measures. |
| Basic day one rights | basic individual rights from day one for all workers related to protection against unfair dismissal, parental leave and sick pay. |
| Single status of worker | move towards a single status of “worker” and transition from the current three-tier system of employment status (i.e. “employee”, “worker”, and “self-employed” categories) to a two-tier employment status framework (“worker” and “self-employed”). |
| Redundancy rights and TUPE | strengthen redundancy rights and protections by ensuring the redundancy rights are determined by the number of people impacted across a business.strengthen the existing set of rights and protections for workers subject to TUPE transfers. |
| Whistleblowers | strengthen protection for whistleblowers, including by updating protection for women who report sexual harassment at work |
| Equality | tackle Access to Work backlogs improving access to reasonable adjustments for disabled workers.introduce duties to publish ethnicity and disability pay gap data for larger employersaction to reduce the gender pay gap and strengthen equal pay rights enhance protections from maternity and menopause discrimination and sexual harassmentnew right to bereavement leave |
| Self-employment | strengthen self-employed rights/protections, including the right to a written contract, action to tackle late payments, and of extension health and safety and blacklisting protections to self-employed workers. |
| Genuine living wage | plan to ensure the minimum wage is a real living wage. |
| Trade Unions | plan to strengthen the collective rights by enhancing union rights of access to the workplace and imposing a duty on employers to inform their staff of their right to join a union |
Conservative
The Conservatives propose modest change from an employment law perspective, although some proposals may impact how employers do business.
| Issue | Detail |
| National insurance | National Insurance contributions will decrease by an additional 2p and the main rate of Class 4 self-employed National Insurance contributions to be abolished entirely by the end of the next Parliament. |
| Fit note process | plan to overhaul the fit note process so that the responsibility for issuing fit notes would be moved away from GPs to specialist work and health professionals. |
| Equality Act 2010 | amend the Equality Act 2010 to clarify that the protected characteristic of “sex” means biological sex. Legislation would also provide that an individual can only have one sex in the eyes of the law throughout the UK. |
| Minimum Service Levels | Continuation of implementing the Strike (Minimum Service Levels) Act 2023 and plans to bring forward legislation to reapply the entirety of the Trade Union Act 2016 to Wales |
| 100,000 more apprenticeships | plan to create 100,000 high-quality apprenticeships in England every year by the end of the next Parliament. |
Liberal Democrats
The Liberal Democrats have a wide range of employment law initiatives in its Fair Deal manifesto, some of which overlap with Labour’s plans.
| Issue | Detail |
| ‘Dependent contractor’ employment status | creation of a new “dependent contractor” status which would include basic rights such as minimum earnings, sick pay and holiday entitlement. |
| Zero hours | setting a 20% higher minimum wage for people on zero-hour contracts at times of normal demand to compensate them for the uncertainty of fluctuating hours of workgiving a right to request fixed-hours contract after 12 months for ‘zero hours’ and agency workers, not to be unreasonably refused. |
| Employment Tribunals | shifting the burden of proof in employment tribunal cases regarding employment status from the individual to the employer. |
| Parental leave and sick pay | proposals to make parental leave/sick pay more accessible by making both day-one rights. |
| Equality Act 2010 | make “caring” and “care experience” protected characteristics and introduce paid Carer’s Leave.Introduce paid neonatal care leave. |
| Publishing data | requiring large employers to monitor and publish data on gender, ethnicity, disability, and LGBT+ employment levels, pay gaps and progression, and publish five year aspirational diversity targets. |
We will provide further updates and guidance post-election.
Should you require any further help or advice in this area please do not hesitate to contact the Hill Dickinson Health Employment Team.
For further details on our employment law services, please contact us or a member of our employment law team.
For further information, please contact:
Fiona McLellan, Partner, Hill Dickinson
fiona.mclellan@hilldickinson.com
