Repeal of European Law
The Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) bill was published in time for the “fiscal event” on Friday 23rd September. Parliament is yet to debate and conceivably there may be changes. In essence the thrust of the bill is that all retained EU Law is automatically removed from the UK statute book from the end of 2023. However, there is provision that this could be extended. However, if the provisions are extended, the value of legal precedent is likely to be seriously limited.
I am not going to look at the non-employment law provisos. These are too many and too various. I am simply giving a view as to what I think is likely to happen from the point of view of UK employment law. Except that I accept that Northern Ireland will not be in the same position because of the Northern Ireland protocol but who knows? ?The important thing to note is that January 2025 is the latest date for the next election. This will no doubt have a significant impact on what stays and what goes. Employment Law particularly is the achievement of social objectives by legislation and bear in mind that all people impacted by Employment Law will have a vote at the next election. Some will like what they see; others may not. This may therefore have an impact on what is retained and what is specifically extended. I am therefore being somewhat economical and I’m simply picking the item which I think are likely to be subject to change.
Tupe
That it will be repealed in its entirety but what will stay? ??At the moment staff automatically transfer across where there is the sale of a business (other than a share sale) or where there is an outsourcing of a part of the business .
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In my view the sale of a business and the continuation of TUPE rights on sale is not likely to be impacted very considerably, although there may be some future adjustments to the position on redundancies. The more difficult TUPE aspect has always been where a contractor is engaged to carry on some work on behalf of the employer and this can form part of the TUPE regulations. This might, for example, be catering or cleaning or it may be some distinct part of the manufacturing or organisational process. In my view this is quite likely to go or be dramatically curtailed. However, that is not necessarily all good news for an employer. At the moment the rights of the employee get transferred across to the provider of the outsourced service. If this does not happen because TUPE law is repealed ?then the likelihood is that the affected employees who potentially now will all be dismissed will be able to claim redundancy. One bonus side currently of TUPE for employers on an outsourcing provision is that the employees simply move across to the contractor and there are no redundancy pay-outs. If you think of the areas where there are big uses of outsourcing this inevitably leads to a consideration of the NHS. It may have a very big impact on the NHS, ?if services that they have provided themselves are subcontracted to an outsourcer. This might be a private hospital group or simply the cleaning and catering contracts. Redundancy terms in the public sector are financially generous and if, by way of example, the NHS had to recompense staff with nationally agreed redundancy it could be extremely onerous financially and deter such exercises.
Working time
The principal benefit for staff with Working Time Directive are the guaranteed provision of holidays, currently 5.6 weeks including public holidays and a maximum working week. I think the maximum on the working week will be removed although there will be considerable opposition to this, but the holiday provision will stay.
It is very difficult to envisage the current government going to the electorate and particularly in the so-called “red wall” seats and say that the government is going to take away their entitlement to paid holiday. Bear in mind that the last conservative prime minister was committed in certain areas to the improvement of employee rights particularly in the areas of childcare.
The Bonfire of Regulations may be a damp squib.