Changes to Working Time Regulations, TUPE and Restrictive Covenants

Posted on: 15/07/2023

Category: For you

Following the government’s decision not to ‘burn’ all EU-derived law and instead to keep it and to remove from the statute book that which it considers does not help regulation since leaving the EU, some changes have been announced.

A policy paper, ‘Smarter Regulation to Grow the Economy’ has been published which lists the following changes upon which the government is consulting:-

Removing the requirement for businesses to keep records of working time for members of the workforce (which is arguably not observed by most businesses anyway);

Introducing an entitlement for businesses to pay ‘rolled-up’ holiday pay rather than workers having to take their holiday and merging the ‘basic’ and ‘additional’ leave entitlements under the Working Time Regulations into one while keeping the same overall entitlement to annual leave i.e. 5.6 weeks for a full-time worker;

Allowing businesses to consult directly with affected employees rather than having to elect employee representatives for TUPE consultation for businesses with fewer than 50 employees and also for transfers where fewer than 10 employees are affected.

The government is also going to introduce new legislation to limit the length of non-compete clauses in contracts of employment to 3 months after termination which the government estimates will affect up to 5 million UK workers. No changes are proposed to non-solicitation and non-dealing clauses.

The consultation is due to close on the 7 July 2023.