Employment Law Payments and Awards 2024 (Great Britain)

Section 34 of the Employment Relations Act 1999 provides for changes to employment law payments and awards in Great Britain under two Acts:?

• The Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 and
• The Employment Rights Act 1996? ?

?Section 34 of the 1999 Act provides for an increase or decrease in the following statutory limits each year according to the year-on-year change in the Retail Prices Index (RPI) at the previous September.??

On 26 February 2024, the Department for Business and Trade laid The Employment Rights (Increase of Limits) Order 2024 that reflects the increase in the RPI increase of 8.9% between September 2022 and September 2023.? These are effective from the ‘appropriate date’ of 06 April 2024 which reflects, in turn, the implementation date for these statutory changes as per the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013.??

This appropriate date is important and varies depending on the circumstances that give rise to the need for payment at the new rates (see the Schedule of the above 2024 Order).? For example, in a redundancy situation, the new statutory minimum payment of ￡700.00 per week applies where the date of the redundancy is on or after 06 April 2024.

• The daily amount of guarantee payment increases from ￡35 to ￡38
• The value of ‘a week’s pay’ increases from ￡643 to ￡700 per week
• The maximum compensatory award in unfair dismissal claims increases from ￡105,707 to ￡115,115, or one-year’s net salary, whichever is the lower.? This unfair dismissal cap has been in place since 29 July 2013

Employment law is devolved to Northern Ireland and the Department for the Economy will need to publish its Employment Rights (Increase of Limits) Order (Northern Ireland) 2024 to prescribe limits under its equivalent trade union and employment legislation.?

This is being debated in the Committee for the Economy on 13 March 2024 with publication due afterwards.? This publication will allow a UK-wide position to be known.