Round-up of employment law changes in 2024 and what to look out for in 2025
- 08 January 2025
- Employment
There has been a significant amount of employment law changes or proposed changes, particularly with the Labour Government coming into power earlier this year. A change of government usually entails a raft of changes or proposed changes in employment law, but alongside this, there has been a notable paradigm shift towards the importance of workers’ rights since various industrial unrest and additional costs to be borne by employers, for example, in the form of increased National Insurance contributions, increased day one rights and scrutiny of ‘fire and rehire’ practices and exploitative zero hour contracts. In this article, we will take a whistlestop tour of the various key employment law and case law changes that have taken place this year and then we will highlight what to expect in 2025.
Updated Code of Practice on Flexible Working
At the end of January, ACAS updated its Code of Practice on Flexible Working in which the updated Code incorporates the changes made to Flexible Working laws with effect from April 2024. The update in flexible working has been significant since the widespread Covid-19 lockdowns, and the Code must be followed if any statutory requests for flexible working are submitted.
New Code of Practice on fire and re-hire
In February, the statutory Code of Practice on Dismissal and Re-engagement was introduced, which came into force on 18 July 2024. There is no standalone claim for breach of its provisions, however it must be considered by the Employment Tribunal in relevant cases, such as unfair dismissal. The Code gives the Employment Tribunal the ability to uplift compensation by up to 25% if an employer unreasonably fails to follow it. The uplift does not apply to protective awards for failure to inform and consult in collective redundancy situations. Notably, the Code states that ‘fire and rehire’ should only be used as a last resort and that the purpose of the Code is to “ensure that an employer takes all reasonable steps to explore alternatives to dismissals and engages in meaningful consultation with a view to reaching an agreed outcome with employees and/or their representatives”.
Annual update to the Vento Bands
The Vento bands establish the awards the Employment Tribunal can make to compensate for an injury to feelings in discrimination cases. In respect of claims presented on or after April 2024, the Vento bands are:
We saw the usual annual increases to Tribunal awards, National Minimum Wage/National Living Wage and family friendly rates commence to account for inflation. A particular point to note in relation to a dismissal award, was that a minimum award (£8,533 from 6 April 2024) in exceptional cases, where the reason or principal reason for dismissal was trade union membership or activities; activities as a health and safety representative; duties as an occupational pension scheme trustee; functions or activities as an employee representative or candidate; or working time grounds applies.
Labour published its ‘new deal for working people’, entitled Labour’s Plan to Make Work Pay, in which it set out its mission to grow the UK economy and raise living standards by introducing legislation in Parliament within 100 days of entering government. Its pledge included ending “one-sided flexibility” (including banning zero hour contracts), ending “fire and rehire” and setting out new basic day one rights.
We witnessed a significant election campaign over the course of June which led to the Labour Government coming into power in early July. The King’s Speech also set out Labour’s legislative agenda for their first few months in government seeking to implement their ‘New Deal for Working People’ in full.
We will take a whistlestop tour of the various key employment law and case law changes that have taken place this year and then we will highlight what to expect in 2025.
Repeal of the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act 2024
The government announced that it was going to appeal this Act which had only been introduced by the previous Conservative Government during a wave of industrial action which enabled employers to require a minimum level of service to be provided during a strike, which applied to specific services. It was reported that the Act had not been used by any employer and had not resolved a single strike so unsurprisingly such considerations have resulted in this Act being repealed. The Government had emphasised its commitment to promoting positive industrial relations to “ensure [its] workers have a voice”. The Act is due to be repealed through the Employment Rights Bill.
Right to switch off
The government made a pledge to “bring in the ‘right to switch off’” in their ‘Make Work Pay’ paper where it announced its consideration of this approach to be introduced in a Code of Practice. The pledge did not consider how this work in practice but if to be considered in a Code of Practice, it would be envisaged that a standalone claim could not be brought for breach of the right to switch off, however it would be considered as an aggravating factor to consider the level of compensation any awards made by the Tribunal. We will provide more details on this potential new Code, particularly where no details have been provided as to what type of claims this Code could apply to.
Despite this Act receiving Royal Assent in September 2023, it was confirmed that the Workers (Predictable Terms and Conditions) Act 2023 would not be brought into force in Autumn. However, it seems that the concept of the Act would be considered by the government, particularly where it had proposed banning exploitative zero-hour contracts and ensuring that workers had a right to a contract that reflects the number of hours they regularly work.
Allocation of tips
The Employment (Allocation of Tips) Act 2023 came into force on 1 October 2024. Under the Act, employers are required to pass tips on to workers; employers of businesses where tips are left more than occasionally are required to have a tipping policy in place; and workers have a new right to request a copy of their tipping record, in order to enable them to bring a claim to Employment Tribunal where they believe they are not receiving tips they should be. Employers are also required to have regard to a new statutory Code of Practice when distributing tips which also came into force on 1 October 2024.
Employers’ new duty to prevent sexual harassment
A new legal duty came into force on 26 October 2024 in the form of the Worker Protection (Amendment of Equality Act 2010) Act, placing a positive obligation on all employers to take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment in the workplace. The Equality and Human Rights Commission published practical guidance on this ‘preventative duty’ and what employers need to be doing.
The guidance makes clear that this preventative duty covers not only harassment committed by another worker or agent of the employer but also third parties. It is an anticipatory and ongoing duty and so employers are expected to anticipate the risks for employees of sexual harassment within their businesses, take action to prevent this and keep this under review.
An employer who breaches this duty can face enforcement action from the EHRC and, if an individual succeeds in a claim for sexual harassment, any compensation the employer is required to pay can be increased by up to 25%.
Employment Rights Bill
In this month, we also witnessed the significant Employment Rights Bill being published which contained a full shake-up of employment rights. The bill itself was 158 pages long and introduced 28 individual employment reforms estimated to provide more rights to nine million workers. Notable changes included, day one rights for unfair dismissal with a set probation period, day one family rights, bereavement leave, sick pay amendments, flexible working amendments, a requirement for employers to make an offer of guaranteed working hours, changes to the scope of sexual harassment preventative measures and changes to fire and rehire practices, redundancies and trade union rights. In addition to this, the Bill contains substantial changes to collective redundancy laws, including the removal of “at one establishment” from the legislation and increasing the protective award from 90 to 180 days. Such a bill is extensive and demonstrates a shift to giving workers increased rights. Since the announcement of this Bill, many of these reforms are being consulted on and we will update over the course of this year.
The government issued an Amendment Paper on the Employment Rights Bill in which key changes included extending the time limit for bringing all tribunal claims from 3 months to 6 months and changing the definition of ‘initial period of employment’ for the purposes of unfair dismissal becoming a day one right. It is now clear that the initial period of employment, to be set out later in the Regulations, must be between 3 and 9 months.
We also saw the following key cases which will have significant impacts:
That’s the end of our whistlestop tour which demonstrates the raft of employment law changes we have witnessed or have been proposed over the past year. We will continue to review the outcome of the various outcomes of the consultations and will report on these in due course.
If you require further advice on these topics, please do not hesitate to contact a member of our employment law team.
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Disclaimer
This information is for guidance purposes only and should not be regarded as a substitute for taking legal advice. Please refer to the full General Notices on our website.