All EU-derived employment rights to be scrapped?

Post-Brexit agreement

During the Brexit negotiations, the government agreed to preserve all EU-derived legislation, including employment and workers’ rights, for a transitional period and this was enshrined into our domestic law via the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 .

The government has decided that: “The time is now right to end the special status of retained EU Law in the UK” . Thus, it has introduced the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill (the Bill).

New law

Assuming this Bill makes it on to the statute books (which seems likely), it will automatically repeal all retained EU-derived law on 31 December 2023 (this date can be extended until 23 June 2026, i.e. the tenth anniversary of Brexit), unless specific legislation is introduced to retain it.

That would put the following employment and workers’ rights on the chopping block:

• TUPE
• paid annual holiday
• the maximum 48-hour working week
• the regulations for part-time workers
• the regulations for fixed-term workers
• the Agency Worker Regulations 2010 .

Up in smoke?

It’s been suggested that a raft of workers’ rights will go up in smoke at the end of 2023. Is this true?

In theory, this is possible - but it’s unlikely for several reasons.

Policy statement

Firstly, taking an axe to workers’ rights is hardly going to be vote winner and the government faces a general election in 2024 (if not before). Also, whilst it is certainly undertaking a review of all EU-derived laws, the government has indicated that it intends to safeguard employment rights and protections, not “whittle them down” .

However, we do already know that it intends to make substantive changes to the EU-derived Working Time Directive and data protections laws.

Other planned employment law changes will be announced over the coming months.

Too much confusion

The government is unlikely to change too much in one go as this could cause confusion for employers, unions, employees, workers and agencies, not to mention the knock-on effect which could be felt at the tribunal.

That said, it has been noted that due to the enormous amount of EU-derived legislation which must now be reviewed by civil service staff following the Bill’s introduction, it’s possible that some workers’ rights might be removed accidentally, i.e. because no decision has been made to specifically protect them and/or new domestic legislation won’t be available in time.

Tip. This Bill will now be debated in both the House of Commons and the House of Lords and we can expect challenges and amendments. As soon as there are decisions made about which workers’ rights are staying and which are going, we will bring you the full details.