Can you imagine a duller title for a government Bill? But this might just be the most important piece of employment legislation we’ve seen since the introduction of discrimination and dismissal laws in the 1970s. The Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill was published yesterday.It will automatically repeal any retained EU law (which includes UK statutory instruments introduced to comply with EU law) so that it expires on 31 December 2023 (although this date can be extended until 31 December 2026), unless specific legislation is introduced to retain it. So we might be saying goodbye to:-
- TUPE
- paid annual holiday
- 48 hour working week
- part-time and fixed-term worker Regs
- agency worker regs (hurrah)
According to Caspar Glyn KC, things the Bill affects “include Article 157 of the Treaty and the principle of normal pay for holiday pay. The former is what tens of thousands of women currently use to claim equal pay from supermarkets and the latter is a right that all workers and employed people enjoy.”
It’s impossible to know, for now, what the government will choose to retain and what employment rights it will quietly allow to expire in 15 months time.
I’ll be exploring this in a lot more detail, and sharing my predictions about the likely changes and their practical impact on businesses and the workforce, in the Virtual Employment Law Academy, which starts in just over two weeks time.
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