By Wasana Nadeeshani Sellahewa
UK_(Commonwealth Union)_ It is safe to say that 2022 has been a rollercoaster ride. In the employment arena, the start of the year found HR departments continuing to battle with COVID-19 testing and self-isolation rules, as well as managing a trend towards more formalised home and hybrid working arrangements
Unfortunately, further difficult times appear to be coming, with the UK Government’s Autumn Statement on 17 November reaffirming tax increases and budget cuts and the Bank of England warning of a lengthy recession. So, what employment legal concerns will HR face in 2023? We’ll look at some options below.
Several draft measures are making their way through UK Parliament and might become law in 2023. The Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Law (also known as the ‘Brexit Freedoms Bill’ or ‘REUL Bill’) is one such bill, which the Government initially proposed to the House of Commons in September 2022.
This measure is crucial because there are over 2,400 pieces of retained EU law that must be examined by the December 2023 sunset date, and there is a risk that swaths of laws would expire with nothing to replace them if the Government is unable to study and decide their destiny in time. Make UK has issued a response to the REUL Bill Public Bill Committee outlining the possible repercussions of this draft bill on the manufacturing industry.
The Data Protection and Digital Information Bill, which the government submitted in Parliament in July 2022, intends to reduce the cost of data protection compliance and better control the use of digital information. It is now moving through the House of Commons. The long-awaited Employment Bill has yet to be enacted. However, several of the reforms that were supposed to be included in the Employment Bill have instead appeared in private members’ bills moving through Parliament, which the Government supports, as follows:
The Redundancy Protection (Pregnancy and Family Leave) The bill seeks to expand the redundancy protections already available to employees on maternity, adoption, or shared parental leave to employees who are pregnant or have just returned to work from such leave. The Neonatal Care (Leave and Pay) Bill allows employees who have children referred to neonatal care for at least seven days to take up to 12 weeks of statutory leave and pay. Although no timetable has been provided, we anticipate that these adjustments will be implemented rather soon. Many of these measures will be debated in the House of Commons for the third time in January/February 2023. We will, of course, keep you informed of significant changes.
Other bills currently being debated in the House of Commons that are worth keeping an eye on in 2023 include: the Worker Protection (Amendment of Equality Act 2010) Bill (seeking to reinstate protections for workers from harassment by third parties such as clients, customers, and patients); the Employment (Application Requirements) Bill (to regulate the use of minimum qualification or experience requirements in job applications); and the Fertility Terrorism Bill.
The rate of statutory maternity pay, statutory paternity pay, statutory adoption pay, and statutory shared parental pay will be increased to £172.48 per week, according to the Government. This hike is scheduled to take effect on April 2, 2023. It should be noted that for statutory maternity and statutory adoption pay, the first six weeks are paid at the “earnings-related rate”, which is 90% of the employee’s usual weekly wages, and the following 33 weeks are paid at the statutory rate or the earnings-related rate, whichever is lower. Both statutory paternity and statutory shared parental pay are paid at the lowest of the statutory and earnings-related rates.
