Employment law election proposals: Part 1 - Liberal Democrats

So given that I have fallen deeply into the political abyss over the past several months, I thought I should at least put my new found "politics geek" status to some (semi) good use.

Part 1: a brief summary of what I consider to be the major employment law / employment related proposals in the Liberal Democrats manifesto:

1.     Review tax and NICs of employees, dependent contractors and freelancers to “ensure fair and comparable treatment” (this sounds to me like taxing self-employed individuals as if they were employees, or at the very least moving much closer to the same treatment).

2.     The introduction of a "dependent contractor" employment status to sit in between "employment" and "self-employment" (given the current direction of travel on worker status cases this is probably not a major change).

3.     Review rules concerning pensions so that those in the gig economy don’t lose out (presumably by extending auto-enrolment to the gig economy through the expansion of the dependent contractor category above).

4.     Flexible working open for all from day one.

5.     Increase statutory paternity leave to up to six weeks.

6.     Extend pay gap reporting to include BAME and LGBT+ figures.

7.     Review (i.e. increase) funding of the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

8.     Reform the Gender Recognition Act 2004 to remove the requirement for medical reports and formally recognise non-binary gender identities (Piers Morgan will no doubt take note).

9.     Outlaw caste discrimination.

10.  Minimum wage for those on zero-hour contracts to be 20% higher to off-set uncertainty of hours.

11.  Aim for women to make up at least 40% of FTSE 350 board members (currently less than 30%) and increase ethnic minority representation on boards.

12.  Staff representation on remuneration committees, and requiring all UK-listed companies and all private companies with more than 250 employees to have at least one full status employee representative on their boards.

13.  Strengthen the ability of unions to represent workers, including a right of access to workplaces.

14.  Make the provision of unconscious bias training to all members of staff a condition of the receipt of public funds.

15.  Introduction of a Skills Wallet, giving every adult in England ￡10,000 to spend on education and training during their lives (at age 25, 40 and 55).

More to follow on the other main political parties' promises next week. Please try to stay awake.