Labour’s key workers’ rights legislation has cleared its final parliamentary hurdle and is poised to become law before the end of the year.
Conservative peer Lord Sharpe, the shadow business and trade minister, had introduced an amendment to the Employment Rights Bill during its concluding stage of parliamentary back-and-forth in the House of Lords.
However, he withdrew the amendment following a brief debate, effectively removing the last obstacle to the bill’s enactment.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer hailed the development as a “major victory for working people in every part of the country”.
“We have just introduced the biggest upgrade to workers’ rights in a generation… Today our plans passed through parliament, and will soon become law,” he stated.
The majority of the bill’s provisions will require secondary legislation before they can be implemented.
The legislation applies to England, Scotland, and Wales, but not Northern Ireland.
It will grant workers access to sick pay and paternity leave from their first day of employment and includes enhanced protections for pregnant women and new mothers.
In November, Labour retreated from its proposal to give all workers the right to claim unfair dismissal from day one of employment. However, the government will introduce enhanced protections from six months of employment, the bill’s most significant provision.
Royal assent is expected to be granted this week.
Unite union’s general secretary Sharon Graham stated that the bill must now be implemented “without any further dilution or delay”.
“Labour need now to stop being embarrassed by these new laws for workers. The bill had already been watered far too much, not least the failure to ban fire and rehire and zero hours contracts,” she said.
The Trades Union Congress’s (TUC) general secretary Paul Nowak described it as a “historic day and early Christmas present for working people across the country”.
“Finally, working people will enjoy more security, better pay and dignity at work thanks to this bill,” he said, echoing Unite’s calls for the legislations to be implemented “at speed”.
However, the Conservatives asserted that it was “ironic Labour’s job-destroying unemployment bill passed the very same day official figures confirmed unemployment has risen every month this government has been in office”.
The party was referencing figures published on Tuesday indicating that UK unemployment rose to 5.1% in the three months to October, from 4.3% a year earlier.
Shadow business secretary Andrew Griffith stated: “[The bill] will pile costs onto small businesses, freeze hiring, and ultimately leave young people and jobseekers paying the price for Labour’s capitulation to their union paymasters.”
In a joint statement on Monday, ahead of the deadlock ending, business groups including the British Chambers of Commerce and the Federation of Small Businesses said they remained concerned about some of the bill’s changes.
But they said to keep the six-month qualifying period for unfair dismissal the legislation as it currently was should now be passed.
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