Key Employment Law Highlights from Liberal Democrats Manifesto

Education

Tackle the crisis in teacher recruitment and retention by:

·         Creating a teacher workforce strategy to ensure that every secondary school child is taught by a specialist teacher in their subject.

·         Reforming the School Teacher’s’ Review Body to make it properly independent of

·         Funding teacher training properly so that all trainee posts in school are paid.

·         Introducing a clear and properly funded programme of high-quality professional development for all teachers, including training on effective parental engagement.

Broaden the curriculum by establishing a standing commission and draw on best practice such as the international Baccalaureate and ensure children learn core skills such as critical thinking, verbal reasoning and creativity.

Reform Ofsted inspections and end single word judgements.

Implement a new parental engagement strategy, including a regular, published parent survey and guidance for schools on providing accessible information to parents on what their children are learning.

Set up a register of children who are not in school.

Give local authorities extra funding to reduce the amount that schools pay towards the cost of a child’s Education, Health and Care Plan.

Establish a new National Body for SEND to fund support for children with very high needs.

Give local authorities with responsibility for education the powers and resources to act as Strategic Education Authorities for their area.

“Redirect capital funding for unnecessary new free schools to help clear the backlog of school repairs.”

Review further education funding, including the option of exempting colleges from VAT.

Universities

Give higher education institutions a statutory duty of care for their students.

Establishing a review of higher education finance in the next Parliament to consider any necessary reforms in the light of the latest evidence of the impact of the existing financing system on access, participation and quality, and make sure there are no more retrospective raising of rates or selling off of loans to private companies.

Ensuring that all universities work to widen participation by disadvantages and underrepresented groups across the sector, prioritising their work with students in schools and colleges, and requiring every university to be transparent about selection criteria.

Early years

Develop a career strategy for nursing staff, including a training programme with the majority of those working with children aged two to four to have a relevant Early Years qualification or be working towards one.

Families, Children and Young People

Make all parental pay and leave day-one rights, (including for adoptive parents and kinship carers, and extending this to self-employed parents.)

Double SMP and SPP to £350 a week.

Increasing pay for paternity leave to 90% of earnings, with a cap for high earners.

Introduce an extra use-it-or-lose-it month for fathers and partners, paid at 90% of earnings with a cap for high earners.

Require large employers to publish their parental leave and pay policies.

When public finances allow, give all families (including self employed parents, adoptive parents and kinship carers) 6 weeks of use-it-or-lose-it leave for each parent, paid at 90% of earnings and 46 weeks of parental leave to share between themselves as they choose, paid at double the current statutory rate.

Introduce paid neonatal leave.

Care

Introduce a statutory guarantee of regular respite breaks for unpaid carers.

Introduce paid carer’s leave, building on the entitlement to unpaid leave, along with a weekly allowance for all kinship carers.

Make caring a protected characteristic under the Equality Act 2010 and require employers to make reasonable adjustments to enable employees with caring responsibilities to provide that care.

Introduce a new Carer’s Minimum Wage, increasing the minimum wage for care workers by £2 an hour.

Create a Royal College of Care Workers and recruit more staff into this sector with a social care workforce plan.

Health

Train, recruit and retain the doctors, nurses and other NHS staff needed by making flexible working a day-one right and expand access to flexible affordable childcare.

Fix the work visa system and exempt NHS staff and care staff from the Immigration Skills Charge.

“Ending the false economy of spending money on agency workers and encouraging the use of flexible staff banks”.

Business and jobs

Replace the “broken” apprenticeship levy with a broader and more flexible skills and training levy and “scrap”  the lower apprentice rate, guaranteeing they are paid at least the NMW.

Develop “National Colleges” as national centres of expertise for key sectors, such as renewable energy to deliver high level vocational skills that businesses need.

Establish a new Worker Protection Enforcement Authority unifying responsibilities currently spread across three agencies. This would enforce the NMW, tackle modern slavery and protect agency workers.

Establish an independent review to recommend a genuine living wage across all sectors.

Modernise employment rights to make them fit for the age of the “gig economy” by:

·         Creating a new “dependant contractor” employment status in between employment and self-employment, with entitlements to basic rights such as minimum earnings, sick pay and holiday entitlement.

·         Reviewing tax and NI status of employees, dependent contractors and freelancers to ensure fair and comparable treatment.

·         Setting a 20% higher minimum wage for people on zero hour contracts at times of normal demand to compensate them for the uncertainty of fluctuating hours of work.

·         Giving a right to request a fixed hours contract after 12 months for zero hours and agency workers, not to be unreasonably refused.

·         Reviewing rules concerning pensions so that those in the gig economy don’t lose out, and portability between roles is protected.

·         Shifting the burden of proof in employment tribunals regarding employment status from individual to employer.

Subject to significant business reasons, “everyone” would have the right to flexible working, and every disabled person the right to work from home if they want to.

Staff in listed companies with more than 250 employees would have a right to request shares, to be held in trust for the benefit of employees.

Expand parental leave and pay, including making them day one rights.

Remove the lower earnings limit for SSP – making this available to the more than one million workers earning less than £123 a week and aligning the rate with the NMW.

Make SSP payable from the first day of sickness.

Support small employers with SSP costs, consulting with them on the best way to do this.

Rights and Equality

Uphold the Equality Act and make caring and care experience protected characteristics.

Reform the gender recognition process to remove the requirement for medical reports, recognise non-binary identities in law, and remove the spousal veto.

Improve diversity in the workplace and public life by:

·         Requiring large employers to monitor and publish data on gender, ethnicity, disability and LGBT+ employment levels, pay gaps and progression and publish 5 year aspirational diversity targets.

·         Extend the use of name blind recruitment process in the public sector and encourage the use in the private sector.

·         Provide additional support and advice to employers on neurodiversity in the workplace, and develop a cross government strategy to tackle all aspects of discrimination faced by neurodiverse children and adults.

Implement a comprehensive Race Equality Strategy and tackle the disability employment gap by implementing a targeted strategy to support disabled people into work, with specialist disability employment support. Raising employers’ awareness of the Access to Work scheme and simplifying and speeding up the application process.

Introduce “Adjustment Passports” to record the adjustments, modifications and equipment a disabled person has received and ensuring Access to Work Support with equipment staying with the person if they change jobs.