{"id":143225,"date":"2025-09-14T11:49:12","date_gmt":"2025-09-14T11:49:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/143225\/"},"modified":"2025-09-14T11:49:12","modified_gmt":"2025-09-14T11:49:12","slug":"after-angela-rayners-exit-from-government-whats-the-future-for-employment-rights-in-the-uk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/143225\/","title":{"rendered":"After Angela Rayner\u2019s exit from government, what\u2019s the future for employment rights in the UK?"},"content":{"rendered":"

After the resignation of Angela Rayner<\/a>, the UK government faces an urgent question: what will happen to its flagship employment rights bill? The former deputy prime minister was an important champion of the bill \u2013 and businesses have seized an opportunity to call for it to be diluted<\/a>. At the same time, unions are pressing hard in the opposite direction. <\/p>\n

Shortly after Labour won office in 2024, prime minister Keir Starmer<\/a> described the bill<\/a> as \u201cthe biggest levelling up of workers\u2019 rights in a generation\u201d, adding it was designed to give people \u201csecurity, dignity and respect at work\u201d. <\/p>\n

In its manifesto, Labour had promised to \u201cmake work pay\u201d<\/a> \u2013 so the ambitious draft bill introduced in October 2024 contained 28 reforms to employment rights. These include requiring employers to guarantee workers a minimum number of hours; strengthening redundancy rights; rights to parental leave and protection from unfair dismissal from a worker\u2019s first day; and expanding trade union rights. <\/p>\n

Not only are the changes wide-ranging, they also affect a very large number of workers. There are, for example, nine million people<\/a> in the UK who have been in their job for less than two years and who will gain the right to claim unfair dismissal.<\/p>\n

The bill passed the House of Commons in March 2025. The House of Lords made some important amendments, giving workers a \u201cright to request\u201d rather than a \u201cright to have\u201d guaranteed working hours, increasing the qualifying period for unfair dismissal to six months (rather than one day), and reinstating the previous 50% turnout threshold for a trade union to vote for industrial action.<\/p>\n

The planned legislation addresses a clear problem in the UK. In-work poverty and precarious work (characterised by low wages, uncertain income and insecurity) have been increasing. More and more people do not earn enough to make ends meet \u2013 between 1996 and 2024 the proportion of people in poverty who lived in families with at least one person working<\/a> increased from 44% to 65%. <\/p>\n

This is expensive \u2013 benefits paid to working people cost the government around \u00a350 billion a year<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Introducing the bill, Rayner described it<\/a> as \u201cpro-growth, pro-business, pro-worker\u201d. The UK\u2019s slow productivity growth<\/a> has been a problem since the financial crisis, and the government hopes that the better retention and higher job satisfaction that the bill could bring about will increase productivity. This view is broadly supported by academic research<\/a>.<\/p>\n

What do its critics say?<\/p>\n

The government estimates that the bill will cost businesses between \u00a3900 million and \u00a35 billion<\/a> annually. This seems small, especially in comparison to total wage costs in the UK of more than \u00a31.3 trillion<\/a>. <\/p>\n

However, it was introduced at a time when employers\u2019 costs were already increasing. In April 2025, employers\u2019 national insurance<\/a> contributions increased from 13.8% to 15%<\/a> of earnings, and the threshold for paying contributions fell from \u00a39,100 a year to \u00a35,000. <\/p>\n

The minimum wage<\/a> increased from \u00a311.44 to \u00a312.21 per hour for those over 21 and from \u00a38.60 to \u00a310 per hour for 18 to 20-year-olds. These changes hit sectors with lots of young, low-paid workers \u2013 hospitality and retail, for example \u2013 hardest. Employers in these sectors often use flexible working (such as zero-hours contracts) to offset the costs<\/a> of higher minimum wages.<\/p>\n

\"shopper<\/a><\/p>\n

If businesses pass rising staff costs on to consumers, the bill may end up harming the people it was designed to help.
\n 1000 Words\/Shutterstock<\/a><\/p>\n

If this becomes more difficult because of restrictions imposed by the bill, employers can attempt to pass increased costs on to customers by raising prices. But if food prices increase, for example, this will hurt lower-paid workers (who spend a high proportion of their income on food) \u2013 the very people the bill is intended to help.<\/p>\n

Of course, not all employers can pass on higher costs. Universities, for instance, have already estimated that national insurance increases cost them \u00a3430 million per year<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Restrictions to \u201cfire and rehire\u201d (where employers fire employees and rehire them under different terms, such as less generous pensions) may affect<\/a> employers looking to restructure. In such cases, employers may instead cut jobs. With the number of UK vacancies falling for three years<\/a>, this could accelerate the decline.<\/p>\n

The UK\u2019s new business secretary, Peter Kyle, has taken over the role of supporting the bill through parliament. He has previously supported it, although he has also committed to lowering regulation<\/a>, which is seemingly at odds with this bill.<\/p>\n

Both business and union leaders are lobbying hard ahead of the Commons debate on September 15. Unions are demanding Labour MPs be whipped to oppose the Lords\u2019 amendments, and some have threatened to disaffiliate<\/a> from the party if not. For now, the government insists it will pass the bill and reject the amendments. But businesses will hope that new ministers will be more sympathetic to their concerns.<\/p>\n

There are still lots of details to be worked out. For example, the bill does not define what counts as the \u201cminimum hours\u201d workers would be guaranteed. With the timeline for introducing all the changes stretching to 2027, business leaders will have plenty of time to lobby for delayed implementation or to reduce its coverage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After the resignation of Angela Rayner, the UK government faces an urgent question: what will happen to its…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":143226,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[45,49,48,124],"class_list":{"0":"post-143225","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jobs","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-jobs"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143225","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=143225"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143225\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/143226"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=143225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=143225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=143225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}