Within the King’s Speech on 17 July 2024 the new Labour Government set out their legislative agenda for the next few months. The reform of employment law was a pillar of Labour’s election campaign and so it is no surprise it was referenced within the King’s speech:

My Government is committed to making work pay and will legislate to introduce a new deal for working people to ban exploitative practices and enhance employment rights.

Accompanying the announcements in the King’s Speech were Background Briefing Notes.

The Government is proposing the introduction of two new employment Bills:

• The Employment Rights Bill which is intended to implement Labour’s New Deal for Working People (which we have previously written about here; and
• The Draft Equality (Race and Disability) Bill.

Employment Rights Bill

The Employment Rights Bill appears in the section Economic Stability and Growth of the Briefing Notes and includes commitments to the following:

• Banning “exploitative” zero-hour contracts;
• Ending “the scourges” of “Fire and Rehire” and “Fire and Replace”’ by providing effective remedies and replacing the previous Government’s statutory code;
• Making parental leave, sick pay and protection from unfair dismissal available from day 1 on the job for all workers (although this will not impact upon employers’ ability to operate probationary periods to assess new hires);
• Strengthening Statutory Sick Pay by removing the lower earnings limit and the waiting period;
• Making flexible...

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