Before getting into the detail of last week’s Employment Bill, which we will do here separately, a brief review of its press release. Where new law is proposed, this is usually a good starting point from which to judge the quality of the legislation it supports. On that basis, I think it fair to say that we may be in some difficulty.
Conservative government press releases, especially latterly, tended to come full of rousing patriotic platitudes, some jibes at Europe for being foreign, music by Elgar and a Spitfire fly-past. Judging by the press blurb for the Employment Bill, however, the tone has changed. Here we have instead the traditional Labour catnip references to “exploitative” and “unscrupulous” employers, bolstered by a series of statements about the advantages to be brought by the new Bill for both employees and employers some of which are, and there is no nice way of putting this, simply untrue.
For example, there are a number of references to reducing recruitment costs for employers by increasing staff retention, which is obviously lovely, but retention is primarily promoted by preventing the employer from choosing the staff it wants and dismissing those it doesn’t, a state of affairs ultimately likely to lead to far greater costs for the business. This also collides in a particularly loud and messy fashion with one of the stated aims of the reforms to the unfair dismissal regime, i.e. to encourage workers to switch jobs more often.
Angela Rayner is quoted as saying that the Bill will help “businesses unable to retain the workers they need to grow“, and yet nowhere in the Bill, let alone the press release, is any indication of how. Perhaps it is by increasing flexible working rights, but an employer seeking to retain those staff will already agree to such requests. The suggestion that this is somehow a new benefit to employer is more than a little disingenuous.
“The best employers know that employees are more productive when they are happy at work” trills Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds, and “that’s why it’s vital to give employers the flexibility they need to grow“. Nothing in the Bill, not a word, increases an employer’s flexibility in any way, a point he must sadly have forgotten at the time of being asked to say something nice about it.
“Ending unscrupulous employment practices is a priority“, continues Mr Reynolds, “… and none more so than shutting down the loopholes that allow bullying …“. There is nothing in the Bill about bullying, nor even in the accompanying Next Steps document outlining the government’s further ambitions by way of employment law reform at a later point.
More political catnip around unfair dismissal – the Bill will “give greater protections against unfair dismissal from day one, ensuring that the feeling of security at work is no longer a luxury for the privileged few“. The privileged few? Every employee of every background with two years’ service, you mean? Similarly, one of the CEO “reviewers” quoted in the press release notes without obvious irony that “the probationary period will allow progressive employers to give a chance to people without typical experience … opening up new opportunities for them in great careers”, almost as if the current exclusion of unfair dismissal rights up to two years’ service did not grant a multiple of that opportunity already.
Employment Rights Minister Justin Madders says proudly that “the government wants to make sure that everyone can get on in work and not be held back because work is not compatible with important family responsibilities“. But therein lies the issue, surely – if those responsibilities are truly incompatible with your holding down a particular job, something has to give. It is naïve in the extreme to suggest that the Bill gives you a way to get on in work if you just can’t.
There is also reference to the new Fair Work Agency, a “stronger recognisable single organisation that people know where to go for help” (though not with their grammar, apparently), “with better support for employers who want to comply with the law and tough action on the minority who deliberately flout it“. Stirring words indeed, but unaccompanied by any indication of what that “support” would be – and it better be good, because even just understanding, let alone complying with, some provisions of the Bill is seriously headachy stuff. If you don’t believe me, tank yourself up with Nurofen on a precautionary basis (always read the label) and have a go at Section 1 of the Bill on guaranteed hours contracts, an almost unreadable 10 pages just by itself. The saving grace in much of this is that it is all a long way off. Current estimates suggest that the Bill will not be law much before 2026, and the unfair dismissal changes late in that year at the earliest. In that time the government has promised further consultation because, as TUC General Secretary Paul Nowak says in the press release with masterful understatement, “there is still detail to be worked through“. My word, there so is.