Government to ditch day-one unfair dismissal policy from workers’ rights bill | Employment law
The government will remove its flagship policy from its workers’ rights bill, removing the right to protection against unfair dismissal from the first day of employment and replacing it with a six-month threshold.
The move comes after business secretary Peter Kyle told businesses at the CBI conference this week that he would listen to concerns about the impact of the law change on hiring. A union source told the Guardian: “They have surrendered and there may be more to come.”
The TUC said it was ready to accept the compromise arrangement after days of negotiations. “The absolute priority now is to get these rights, such as day one sick pay, on the statute book so that working people can start to benefit from them from next April,” general secretary Paul Nowak said.
Kyle replaced Jonathan Reynolds as business minister; Jonathan Reynolds co-led the legislation with former deputy prime minister Angela Rayner.
On Monday, Kyle pledged to ensure businesses “don’t lose out” as a result of the changes, which also include banning zero-hour contracts and providing workers with first-day protection against unfair dismissal.
“I won’t let this be zero-sum, [you] “You give one to the other, the other loses… This needs to be understood correctly,” he said.
A union source said the changes were agreed to allow the bill to progress through the House of Lords more quickly, which had significantly delayed it. This means reducing the qualifying period for unfair dismissal from two years to six months.
The bill initially promised to remove this period completely and
The government instead proposed a lighter probation period available to businesses, which is limited by law to nine months. This will now be abolished and the law will make it impossible for an employee to claim unfair dismissal if they have been in the job for less than six months.
Unions have insisted they have won concessions, including costs, but the move is likely to anger left-wing Labor MPs, who see the employment rights bill as one of their key proposals.
The bill has been amended three times by Tory and Liberal Democrat colleagues in the House of Lords to meet significant demands from business. Kyle had said that he would do “whatever it takes” to remove the obstacles that the parliament brought to the bill due to the amendments made in the House of Lords, and then consult on the implementation of the law.
“The voice of business, the voice of people working in business, will be heard when we start to implement these important parts of the employment rights bill. And yes, I’m talking about zero-hours contracts and day one rights,” he said.
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch
“This is another humiliating U-turn. Labor talks about stability but governs in chaos. No company can plan, invest or recruit with this level of uncertainty hanging over them.”
“But the Employment Rights Bill still contains measures that will hurt businesses and be terrible for economic growth, and the Conservatives will fight them all. If Labor doesn’t scrap the worst elements of this terrible bill, we will. Britain can’t build prosperity with more bureaucracy.”
