New law: Employers monitoring government plans on EU-derived employment laws

EU retained law includes law in the following areas:

• paid annual holiday, and rest breaks;
• the 48-hour working week;
• protections for night workers;
• part-time and fixed-term worker regulations;
• agency worker regulations;
• parts of the TUPE rules that protect worker rights on transfer of a business or undertaking;
• informing and consulting with employees on redundancy;
• certain health and safety regulations;
• equal pay;
• aspects of the maternity and parental leave regime.

The government has not yet given any guidance as to which EU retained laws it intends to alter. It has, however, launched an online EU retained law ‘dashboard’ setting out every item of retained EU law, so that employers and other stakeholders can see at a glance which provisions are being amended, repealed or replaced.

Purely domestic law, such as anti-discrimination, unfair dismissal and whistleblowing laws, will not be affected.

Operative date

• To be announced

Recommendation

• Employers should ensure they are monitoring government plans to amend, repeal or replace EU-derived employment laws, including by using the government’s online retained EU law dashboard.