The U.K. government has announced a number of measures intended to reform employment laws post-Brexit. These are potentially important changes that would impact the law relating to non-competition clauses, holiday time and Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations (TUPE), as well as the whole employment law landscape.

Reduced regulatory burden on employers

In its policy paper entitled ‘Smarter Regulation to Grow the Economy’ published 10 May 2023, the government confirmed the following changes that are intended to reduce the regulatory burden on employers:

Restriction on non-competition clauses

• The government intends to introduce legislation to limit the length of non-competition clauses in employment contracts to a maximum of three months.
• No changes are proposed to restrict other protections available to employers to protect themselves in respect of against departing employees (e.g., notice, garden leave and nonsolicitation post-termination restrictions).

Key takeaways: No timescale has been given as to when the government will introduce the legislation, just ‘when Parliamentary time allows’. It therefore remains to be seen how quickly employers will need to grapple with these proposed changes. However, reviewing (and limiting) the use of restrictive covenants in this way has been on the government’s radar for quite some time, so we suspect may be seen as a priority.

If/when the legislation is passed, it will have a significant impact on employers...

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