Flexible working
The Employment Relation (Flexible Working) Bill includes the right to request variations to terms and conditions of employment (including working hours, times and locations). In addition the government’s consultation response signals the intention to create a more onerous consultation process before rejecting employee requests and the ‘day one’ right to flexible working.
Unpaid carer’s leave
The Carer’s Leave Bill will introduce a new entitlement for employees with caring responsibilities to take up to one week of unpaid leave each year to care for someone with an illness or injury (lasting at least three months), a disability, or old age.
Neonatal care leave
The Neonatal Care (Leave and Pay) Bill will introduce new leave and pay entitlements for employees with responsibility for children receiving neonatal care. The Bill will allow parents to each take up to 12 weeks of paid leave in addition to other leave such as maternity and paternity. It will apply to parents of babies who are admitted to hospital up to the age of 28 days and have a continuous stay in hospital of seven full days or more.
Next steps
There are no set timescales for the introduction of these Bills, but we’ll update you as soon as we know more. In part two next week we’ll cover a new statutory code on the practice of ‘fire and rehire’ and new enhanced redundancy protections.
This update is accurate on the date it was sent (11 January 2023), but may be subject to change which may or may not be notified to you. This update is not to be taken as advice and you should seek advice if anything contained within affects you or your business.
