UK Employment Bill 2021/22: what happened?

The UK Employment Bill is a collection of bills relating to employment rights and regulations that have been or will be proposed in the UK Parliament. Introduced by Conservative MP John Lamont on 22nd June 2021, the 2021/2022 bill included the following:

• changes to the definition of ‘worker’ and alteration of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 accordingly
• the creation of an Armed Forces Federation
• the addition of employee representatives to company boards

It was hoped that employment rights and regulations mentioned in the Queen’s speech in 2019 would be included in the 2021/22 bill, for instance, encouraging employers to provide flexible working and leave for carers. However, this didn’t happen.

The 2021/2022 Employment Bill was prorogued in 2022 after reaching but not completing the second stage in the process. This means that it didn’t progress any further in Parliament and was brought to an end.

So what does that mean for the three issues included in the 2021/22 bill?

Definition of the term ‘worker’

Currently, a worker is termed as an individual who works on a contract or other arrangement in return for some form of reward. They have certain employment rights, but not as many as an employee.

The 2021/22 bill sought to create a single employment status for workers and employees alike, so that both would have the same employment rights. While the employment bill didn’t progress, this issue was again introduced in the Workers (Employment Security and Definition) Bill which also addressed the rights of zero hour workers. That bill was prorogued and didn’t progress past the second stage. Making changes to the definition of worker was also covered in the Status of Workers Bill and the Workers (Rights and Definition) Bill. Both bills were prorogued without completion.

Armed Forces Federation

The bill called for the creation of an Armed Forces Federation to represent members of the UK armed forces and reservists. This body would assist in the areas of welfare, remuneration, and factors affecting an individual’s efficiency. To date, this has not happened. However, in December 2021, a new Armed Forces Bill was passed in Parliament to ensure that armed forces personnel and veterans were not disadvantaged when seeking key services such as healthcare, accommodation, education, and justice.

Currently, the UK employment rights and regulations of the armed forces are covered by the Employment Rights Act 1996. The rights and regulations of reservists are covered by the Reserve Forces (Safeguard of Employment) Act 1985.

Employee representatives on company boards

The 2021/22 Employment Bill introduced the role of worker representative director. This is a company director who represents the organisation’s workforce in the boardroom, in addition to their usual tasks and responsibilities. The bill sought to make it a legal requirement for all qualifying companies to have a worker representative director.

While this was not made law, the 2018 UK Corporate Governance Code, applicable to premium listed companies on the London Stock Exchange, introduced new measures which require company boards to increase engagement with the workforce and outline this engagement in their annual report.

What is included in the 2022/23 Employment Bill?

The 2022/23 Employment Bill was introduced by Scottish National Party (SNP) MP Steven Bonnar on 6 December 2022 and is scheduled for a second reading on March 24th 2023. The exact contents of the bill aren’t set out in detail yet but the initial introduction included the right to request more predictable working terms and conditions and a change to the definition of ‘worker’. Beyond these two items, the initial introduction also touched on:

• the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill which would revoke, replace, modify, or update EU laws that currently form part of UK legislation
• the holding to account of employers who act against worker and employee rights
• zero hours contacts and work on demand only requirements
• fire and rehire practices
• the right to strike
• rates of pay for young people
• statutory sickness pay rates
• protection for workers with unfair contracts

Wrapping it up

While the 2021/2022 Employment Bill didn’t contain issues that many people had hoped to see, such as flexible working rights, was prorogued before it could progress past the second stage, and resulted in no changes to employment legislation, the 2022/23 bill has the potential to address many areas of worker and employee rights that the general public are keen to see put into practice.