Weekly highlights

Weekly highlights

This subtopic is an archive of weekly highlights from Lexis+® UK Employment.

Employment law weekly highlights

Each week the Lexis+® UK Employment team compiles a summary of recent highlights of interest to employment law practitioners, including news updates, analysis of legal developments and expert commentary on:

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Latest Employment News

WEC launches inquiry into statutory paternity and shared parental leave

The Women and Equalities Committee (WEC) has initiated a call for written evidence on statutory paternity and shared parental leave, as part of its broader ‘Equality at work’ inquiry and in line with Labour Manifesto promises to enhance family-friendly rights at work. This move comes in anticipation of the government's proposed review of the parental leave system. The WEC aims to gather insights on the effectiveness of current schemes, their equality and labour market impacts, reasons for low take-up, and potential alternatives. The committee is particularly interested in addressing inequalities in the utilisation of shared parental leave across various demographic factors. Submissions are invited until 31 January 2025, with the findings intended to inform and influence the government's forthcoming review of parental leave policies.

Trade Unions urge government to increase statutory sick pay rate in Employment Rights Bill

A coalition of 24 trade union general secretaries, including leaders from the British Medical Association and Royal College of Nursing, have written to Prime Minister Keir Starmer expressing concern over the government's statutory sick pay (SSP) reform plans. While welcoming proposals in the Employment Rights Bill (ERB) to extend SSP to low-income workers and remove the waiting period, the unions are calling for a significant increase to the weekly SSP rate. SSP is set to rise to £118,75 per week from April 2025 (currently £116.75), but the unions argue this remains insufficient for workers to recover safely from illness. The letter requests a ministerial meeting to discuss strengthening SSP to align with rates in other OECD countries, emphasising the need for a comprehensive plan to address the issue within the forthcoming ERB.

Employment weekly highlights—5 December 2024

This edition of Employment weekly highlights includes: (1) the High Pay Centre’s ‘Charter for Fair Pay’, (2) an EAT judgment about harassment related to the claimant’s accent, (3) an EAT judgment about what needs to be included in the employment tribunal’s reasons in disability harassment claims, (4) a Ministry of Justice Call for Evidence on costs protection in discrimination claims, (5) an EAT judgment on whether a claimant could run a high value Parry v Cleaver argument for the first time on appeal, (6) analysis of the proposal to change the time limit to bring employment tribunal claims from three to six months, (7) our new Practice Note on neonatal care leave and pay, (8) our new risk assessment, checklist, action plan and monitoring log for employers to use when taking steps to prevent sexual harassment, (9) dates for your diary, and (10) other news items of interest to employment practitioners.

British actuary loses Indian bias appeal against regulator

Law360: The Court of Appeal on 2 December 2024 upheld the Employment Appeal Tribunal’s (EAT) decision to overturn an Employment Tribunal's ruling that a regulator discriminated against a British actuary by giving preferential treatment to Indian nationals.