What's coming up? Quarterly horizon scan

September 18, 2024

Following the change in the UK government in July, the second half of 2024 is shaping up to be extremely busy for employment lawyers and HR practitioners. While the most significant changes are likely to be in the proposed new Employment Rights Bill, we share details of what is already on the statute books as well as what to look out for in the months ahead.

On the statute books

The previous UK government passed several pieces of legislation that are due to come into force in the coming months, unless the new government decides to make changes. The government has confirmed it does not plan to bring the Workers (Predictable Terms and Conditions) Act 2023, which featured in previous versions of this update, into force. Instead, it will introduce a new right to a contract that reflects the number of hours a worker regularly works, probably as part of its Employment Rights Bill.

Legislation	Summary	Timescale	What can you do to prepare?
Employment (Allocation of Tips) Act 2023	Requires employers to ensure that all tips and service charges are allocated fairly between their workers (including agency workers).	The (new) government has laid commencement regulations to bring the remaining provisions of this Act, and the statutory code of practice, into force on 1 October 2024.	Assess your current procedures for handling tips and service charges, and ensure they will be compliant with the new requirements. Familiarise yourself with the Code of Practice. The government has promised it will publish additional non-statutory guidance in due course.
Worker Protection (Amendment of Equality Act 2010) Act 2023	Introduces a positive duty on employers to take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment of their employees. Tribunals will have the power to award an uplift in compensation for harassment of up to 25% where it finds an employer has breached this duty. This is quite separate to the current position where employers may defend a claim (and avoid all liability) by proving that they had taken all reasonable steps to prevent harassment.	Comes into force on 26 October 2024.	Familiarise yourself with the duty the Act will introduce for employers to take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment of their employees. Review existing policies and practices around sexual harassment and offer training to staff, particularly managers, on any updated policies. This new positive obligation means it is even more important to show meaningful action to safeguard employees against harassment. The Equality and Human Rights Commission held a consultation over the summer on planned changes to its technical guidance to reflect the new duty the Act introduces. The final, revised guidance should be available before the end of September.
Seafarers Wages Act 2023	Requires that "non-qualifying seafarers" working on ships that use UK ports at least 120 times a year must be paid a rate at least equivalent to the national minimum wage. The government has launched two consultations. The first covered various procedural matters around declarations of national minimum wage compliance, administration of surcharges and refusal of harbour access. It closed in December 2023. The second consultation covered detail of the wage rates payable and surcharges for failure to provide a declaration of compliance. It closed in March 2024.	Prior to the election being called, we expected the government to publish its response to the second consultation over the summer, with the enforcement regime to come into force later this year.	Keep an eye out for the government's response to the second consultation.
Neonatal Care (Leave and Pay) Act 2023	Creates a statutory right to paid leave of between one and 12 weeks (in addition to other family leave) for a parent where their child has received, or is receiving, neonatal care.	Expected to come into force in April 2025.	Familiarise yourself with the four conditions that must be satisfied for a person to be entitled to statutory neonatal care leave. Consider if you wish to enhance the statutory level of neonatal care pay if you offer enhanced pay for other forms of family leave. The government will need to lay around seven pieces of secondary legislation to bring the Act into force and, prior to the election being called, the then Secretary of State for Business and Trade had indicated that the government was working to introduce the new entitlements by April 2025 "at the earliest".
Paternity Leave (Bereavement) Act 2024	Introduces a "day one" statutory right to paternity leave of up to 52 weeks for a father or partner if the child's mother or adoptive parent dies. Employees who take bereavement paternity leave will be able to take keeping-in-touch days and separate regulations may provide enhanced redundancy protection on return from extended paternity leave.	No date yet for this to come into force.	Once we have a date for the new right to come into effect, update your paternity leave policy to reflect it.
Pensions (Extension of Automatic Enrolment) Act 2023	Provides the Secretary of State with the power to reduce the lower age threshold for automatic enrolment into a pension scheme from 22 to 18.	No date yet for this to come into force.	The government decided not to utilise the new powers for the 2024/25 tax year. Watch out for our updates on these provisions coming into force.

We will continue to provide updates and practical guidance on how to best navigate these changes on our blog.

What to look out for

Employment lawyers are eagerly awaiting publication of the Employment Rights Bill, which the government promised to introduce within the first 100 days of coming to power. That means we should have a draft Bill to pore over by 12 October. We will publish the key headlines from the Bill, followed by additional commentary, on our blog in due course.