New Labour, New Rights – What Should You Expect?

The new Labour Government were voted into power on 4 July 2024, marking the end of 14 years of a Conservative UK government. Keir Starmer’s government has vowed to reform employment rights in the UK, with proposals to “make work pay” by introducing new legislation within 100 days of entering office. 
 
So what can we expect to happen?
 
Firstly, Labour want to raise the lowest minimum wage rate to £10.00/hour, up from the current £6.40/hour, with a further promise to “reassess” the national living wage rate (to ensure that it genuinely reflects the cost of living). 
 
There will be a single status of “worker” introduced for everyone, except those individuals who are genuinely self-employed.  Worker and employee status has caused much confusion over the years, particularly for individuals engaged under zero-hours contracts, meaning that their status could be either worker or employee; this will remove that uncertainty and give workers certainty of their rights and is something we recommend you begin speaking to your employer about as soon as possible.
 
Perhaps most important is the pledge to scrap the two-year qualifying period for unfair dismissal.  This may be subject to new laws on statutory probationary periods, although the government has given us little information about this so far. 
 
They have pledged to ban the practice of “fire and rehire” so that employees will no longer feel pressured to accept inferior employment terms to avoid a threat of redundancy. 
 
There are also proposals for a new legal body to be created, with extensive powers to inspect workplaces and bring prosecutions or civil proceedings on workers’ behalf for breaches around health and safety, minimum wage, exploitation and discriminatory practices.
 
And of course, as we have reported previously, they have pledged to ban zero hours contracts and contracts without a minimum number of guaranteed hours.  Further enhanced protections will include ensuring that anyone working regular hours for 12 weeks or more will gain a right to a regular contract to reflect the actual hours normally worked.
 
This will further include ensuring that workers get reasonable notice of any change in shifts or working time, with wages for any shifts cancelled without appropriate notice being paid to workers in full.
 
We haven’t seen any of the new Labour legislation introduced yet, but we would expect to see significant movement on this from the Autumn.