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26 July 2024 / Charles Pigott
Issue: 8081 / Categories: Features , Employment
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Overhauling employment

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How is Labour planning to make work pay? Charles Pigott examines the planned changes to employment policy under the new government
  • The Labour party’s election manifesto included a commitment to implement its ‘Plan to Make Work Pay’ in full.
  • This would represent the most radical overhaul of domestic employment and trade union law in a generation.
  • This article considers the proposed changes, including their knock-on effects.

After years of policy announcements and adjustments, the Labour Party published its ‘Plan to Make Work Pay’ on 24 May. A few weeks later, its election manifesto highlighted the plan’s key commitments and promised to implement it ‘in full’. The King’s Speech on 17 July included, as widely expected, an Employment Rights Bill in the list of measures announced, plus a draft Equality (Race and Disability) Bill.

We still have no clear information about likely timings, other than the frequently re-iterated promise to ‘introduce legislation within 100 days’. The new legislation will apply to Great Britain but not Northern Ireland.

A new kind of landslide

Labour won 412 seats—only six fewer than Tony Blair in 1997—but

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MOVERS & SHAKERS

Gateley Legal—Jack Kelly

Gateley Legal—Jack Kelly

Gateley Legal expands Midlands residential development team

Gibson Dunn—Richard Surtees

Gibson Dunn—Richard Surtees

Gibson Dunn adds employee benefits and executive compensation practice in London with partner Richard Surtees

Laytons ETL—Alec Cameron

Laytons ETL—Alec Cameron

Laytons ETL appoints new partner and head of intellectual property disputes

NEWS
A series of recent decisions has clarified important principles across property law, from perpetuities to lease renewals and public rights over land
Employers cannot rely on wellbeing services alone to defend workplace stress claims after a High Court decision awarding almost £1m to an overworked employee
Andy Burnham's brand of 'Manchesterism' could offer fresh thinking on legal aid and access to justice if it reaches Westminster, according to Roger Smith, NLJ columnist and former director of JUSTICE
The constitutional fallout from a change of prime minister, rather than the politics, is under scrutiny as questions arise over the limits of executive authority in a leadership transition
The legal profession is undergoing a fundamental shift from selling services to creating technology-enabled products, according to Professor Luke Mason, Head of School of Law at Regent's University London
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