Written Statements

Tuesday 4th March 2025 Written Statements

Tuesday 4 March 2025

Making Work Pay: Consultation Responses

Tuesday 4th March 2025 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Jonathan Reynolds)]

The Government’s plan to make work pay is a core part of our mission to grow the economy, raise living standards across the country and create opportunities for all. It will tackle the low pay, poor working conditions and poor job security that has been holding our economy back. The landmark Employment Rights Bill (ERB) will benefit more than 10 million workers in every corner of the country.

We are committed to working with all stakeholders on how to best put these measures into practice. In October the Deputy Prime Minister, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and I launched an initial package of four consultations, with the potential to inform amendments to the ERB. We greatly appreciated the many detailed responses we received. The insights we have gained from businesses, trade unions, representative organisations, civil society, and others have been invaluable in developing proportionate and effective policy.

Today we are publishing the Government’s response to each consultation on gov.uk, including our next steps, as well as the Government’s response to a consultation undertaken by the previous Government on tackling non-compliance in the umbrella company market. I will also be tabling a number of amendments to the Employment Rights Bill today for consideration at Report stage, reflecting the outcomes of these consultations.

The Government are committed to continuing with this approach through full and comprehensive consultation on the implementation of Make Work Pay to ensure that the changes we are making work for both workers and businesses of all sizes.

Consultation 1: The application of zero hours contracts measures to agency workers

The Government believe that every worker should be able to access a contract which reflects the hours they regularly work. We believe this should extend to agency workers, not only to offer them greater certainty of hours and security of income, but to ensure that agency work does not become a loophole in the plans to end exploitative zero hours contracts. We also recognise the important role that the temporary work sector plays in both the public and private sector, and the need for employers to retain flexibility in their workforces. This consultation sought views on how to apply zero hours contract measures to agency workers, receiving 629 responses from a broad range of stakeholders.

Based on the consultation responses and further stakeholder engagement, we will table amendments to the Employment Rights Bill which would allow the Government to implement the zero hours contracts rights for agency workers. We believe it is important to narrow the broad power currently in the Bill so that end hirers, agencies and agency workers are clear where responsibilities will sit in relation to the new rights. The obligation to provide a guaranteed hours offer will rest with the end hirer, but legislation will maintain flexibility to place the obligation on agencies or other intermediaries instead, in certain scenarios, which will be set out in secondary legislation. Both the end hirer and agency will be responsible for providing an agency worker with reasonable notice of shifts, shift cancellations and changes to shifts. Agencies will be responsible for making payments to workers which result from short notice cancellations, movements or curtailments of a shift. Agencies and hirers will remain free to negotiate terms which may allow these costs to be recouped from the hirer where the hirer was in fact responsible for the change. In the case of pre-existing contracts, legislation will allow agencies to recoup these costs to the extent the hirer was responsible.

Significant details of the legislation will be set in regulations. We will take the necessary time to consult on the regulations, to ensure clear, detailed and workable provisions. We will continue to engage with employer organisations, the recruitment sector and trade unions to identify the best way to achieve the policy objective of extending rights for agency workers without causing unintended consequences to employment agencies and end hirers.

Consultation 2: Creating a modern framework for industrial relations

This consultation sought views on proposals to update the legislative framework in which trade unions operate to align it with modern work practices, removing unnecessary restrictions on trade union activity and ensuring industrial relations are underpinned by collaboration, proportionality, accountability, and a system that balances the interests of workers, businesses and the wider public. This consultation received 165 responses from a range of stakeholders.

We will table amendments to improve the process and transparency around trade union recognition and access, including streamlining the trade union recognition process and strengthening protections against unfair practices. This includes addressing unfair practices to prevent mass recruitment designed to influence the bargaining unit and prevent recognition being granted; a new fixed timeline for employers and trade unions to agree access arrangements for recognition purposes; removing the requirement to prove that an unfair practice influenced voting behaviour; extending the code of practice on access and unfair practices from the point the CAC accept a recognition application; and extending the unfair practice complaint timeframe from 24 hours to five days. We will also amend the Bill so that independent unions can apply for recognition where an employer has voluntarily recognised a non-independent union following receipt of a formal request for voluntary recognition by the independent union.

We will also table amendments to extend the trade union access provisions to cover digital access, in line with modern-day workplaces, while also introducing a fast-track route for achieving an “off-the-shelf" access agreement where certain conditions are met, alongside a mechanism to ensure there are robust penalties in place for non-compliance.

As part of our efforts to remove unnecessary bureaucratic hurdles, and deliver a balance between allowing for effective industrial action, while also ensuring that employers are able to reasonably prepare, we will amend the ERB to abolish the 10-year requirement for unions to ballot members on political fund maintenance, simplify the information requirements for industrial action ballots and notice to employers, extend the expiry of mandate for industrial action from six to 12 months, and ensure that trade unions provide a 10-day notice period for industrial action.

The Government also want to ensure that trade unions have a meaningful mandate to support relationships and negotiation with employers and deliver effective dispute resolution. That is why we are committed to making balloting more accessible by delivering e-balloting, which we anticipate will increase participation in statutory ballots and demonstrate clear mandates. We will launch a working group with trade unions and businesses imminently. While we continue to engage on how to ensure that trade unions are able to secure a meaningful mandate for industrial action, and as the other reforms to trade union legislation come into force, the Government will table an amendment to the ERB specifying that the repeal of the 50% industrial action ballot turnout threshold will be subject to commencement on a date to be specified in regulations. The intention behind this approach is to align as closely as possible the removal of thresholds with the introduction of e-balloting. This will ensure that industrial action mandates will have demonstrably broad support.

Consultation 3: Strengthening remedies against abuse of rules on collective redundancy and fire and rehire

This consultation sought views on increasing the maximum period of the protective award for failing to adhere to collective consultation requirements, and on applying interim relief to fire and rehire and collective redundancy scenarios. We received 195 responses, from a range of stakeholders.

We will table an amendment to increase the maximum period of the protective award to 180 days (up from the current maximum of 90 days). Increasing the maximum value of the award means an employment tribunal will be able to grant larger awards to employees for an employer’s failure to meet consultation requirements.

The Government want to enhance the deterrent against employers deliberately ignoring their collective consultation obligations and ensure it is not financially beneficial to do so. The Government are not proposing to bring forward the proposals to make interim relief available for either collective redundancy or fire and rehire scenarios. The most overarching and prominent theme from the responses on this section of the consultation is that it would be difficult to implement interim relief in practice, and the complexities for the employee in bringing a claim would outweigh any benefits in doing so. We will keep the area under review though and if it is found that further measures are needed, we will look to introduce them.

Consultation 4: strengthening statutory sick pay

Through the Employment Rights Bill, we are removing the waiting period so that SSP is paid from the first day of sickness absence and extending eligibility to those earning below the lower earnings limit.

We are introducing a new rate for statutory sick pay which will be paid to the lowest earners, including all those earning below the lower earnings limit. An employee will be entitled to the flat rate or a percentage of their earnings, whichever is lower. We consulted on what this percentage rate of earnings should be.

Following this consultation, and together with the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, I am today tabling an amendment to set the percentage rate of statutory sick pay that will be paid up to the flat rate of SSP at 80% of an employee’s normal weekly earnings. This percentage rate provides a fair earnings replacement and strikes the right balance between providing financial security to employees who are unable to work due to sickness, while also limiting additional costs to businesses.

The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions will also publish the full Government response to the consultation on statutory sick pay, which sets out the findings and rationale in more detail, and will submit the Government’s response to the Work and Pensions Select Committee report on statutory sick pay.

Consultation 5: Tackling non-compliance in the umbrella company market consultation

In 2023 the previous Government consulted on proposals to regulate umbrella companies and options to tackle tax non-compliance in the umbrella company market, but no action was taken to address this. This means that many workers are unaware of who is responsible for providing their employment rights, or whether they are entitled to any employment rights at all. Many have reported a lack of pay-related transparency and mishandling of pay (typically, non-transparent deduction from wages). Yet the Employment Agency Standards Inspectorate is currently unable to take action against non-compliant umbrella companies, as they do not fall within scope of the legislation covering employment agencies and employment businesses.

We will therefore table an amendment to the Employment Rights Bill to expand the scope of the Employment Agencies Act 1973, allowing umbrella companies to be regulated for the purposes of employment rights. We will set out the detail in regulations following further consultation, aiming to ensure that workers have comparable rights and protections when working through an umbrella company as when taken on directly by an employment business.

Next steps for consultation

This package represents the first phase of formal public consultations on how best to put our plans into practice. We have committed to full consultation on the implementation of this legislation, and expect this to begin this year, ensuring reforms work for employers and workers alike.

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Early Support Hubs

Tuesday 4th March 2025 Written Statements

[The Minister for Care (Stephen Kinnock)]

The Minister for Patient Safety, Women’s Health and Mental Health, my noble Friend Baroness Merron, has made the following written statement:

Nothing says more about the state of a nation than the wellbeing of its children. That is why the Government made a clear commitment in our manifesto to improve the mental health of young people through specialist support and earlier intervention. We continue to make progress on delivering these manifesto commitments, such as access to specialist mental health professionals in every school, as part of our drive to reform the NHS through our 10-year health plan and create opportunities for young people through mission-led Government.

Today, I wish to inform the House that the Government are providing continued top-up funding in 2025-26 for 24 early support hubs in England and running an evaluation of the support that they deliver, backed by £7 million.

Building on a shared outcomes fund project being delivered in 2024-25, this means that over 12,000 children and young people will continue to have access to innovative early mental health and wellbeing support at an early stage.

In our manifesto, we committed to providing open access mental health support for children and young people through Young Futures hubs. Working with the Home Office, the Department for Education and colleagues across Government, our hope is that the evidence and insights collected through the early support hubs evaluation will support the delivery of Young Futures hubs, alongside best practice and learning from other initiatives. This learning will inform our ambitions for community mental health and wellbeing support for children and young people, and ensure that they have access to the kinds of support they need.

As well as providing mental health support in every community, we are also continuing work to recruit 8,500 new mental health workers to cut waiting times and ensure that people can access treatment and support earlier.

I know that we still have a long way to go to ensure that all young people are provided with access to the mental health support they need. However, today’s investment marks a step in the right direction to support children and young people’s mental health.

Local Audit Backlog in England: Non-compliance Lists

Tuesday 4th March 2025 Written Statements

[The Minister for Local Government and English Devolution (Jim McMahon)]

Effective local audit provides transparency, accountability, trust and confidence in local bodies to spend taxpayer money wisely. Close to 500 local bodies in England are required to publish their audited accounts annually.

However, the Government inherited a broken local audit system in England, evidenced by an audit backlog that peaked at 918 outstanding unaudited accounts in September 2023. More recently, the whole of Government accounts for financial year 2022-23 was disclaimed in autumn 2024, primarily due to a lack of audit assurance on local government accounts.

In July 2024, I outlined proposals to clear this unacceptable backlog and give taxpayers’ the confidence they deserve. These measures were implemented in autumn 2024 via amendments to the Accounts and Audit Regulations 2015 and through the Comptroller and Auditor General’s new code of audit practice. Without these measures, audits would continue to be delayed, and the local audit system would move further away from timely, effective audit, with significant additional cost to the taxpayer. The measures are supported by all key local audit system partners.

The Government appreciate the efforts that bodies and auditors are undertaking to support the drive to fix the foundations. The outcome of the 13 December 2024 backstop shows a shared commitment to restoring sound financial practice to the sector.

Backstop publication requirements

The 2015 regulations, as amended, require bodies to publish audited accounts (including the audit opinion) on their website by the statutory backstop dates below:

Plan for Neighbourhoods

Tuesday 4th March 2025 Written Statements

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Alex Norris)]

This Government’s defining mission is growth, and we are determined that nowhere will be left behind in that pursuit.

Over the last decades the impact of austerity and decline has not been equally felt. Some neighbourhoods have been starved of investment and reform, worsening deprivation and making the path to growth more difficult than in other communities.

The new £1.5 billon plan for neighbourhoods will deliver up to £20 million of funding and support over the next decade into 75 communities across the UK, laying the foundations to kickstart local growth and drive-up living standards.

No more sticking plasters; no more short-term fixes—rather, a 10-year programme allocating £2 million a year to unlock the potential of the places people call home. This goes hand in hand with everything this Government are delivering to rebuild our country: whether that is the biggest sustained increase in defence spending since the cold war, tackling NHS waiting lists or ending the “Whitehall knows best” approach by empowering local leaders to strengthen communities and determine their future.

The programme will help revitalise local areas and fight deprivation at root cause by zeroing in on three strategic objectives: building thriving places, strengthening communities and taking back control.

In each of the 75 communities, the Government will support the establishment of a new “neighbourhood board”, bringing together residents, local businesses, and grass-roots campaigners to draw up and implement a regeneration plan for their area. Communities have come up with their own grass-roots solutions: opening foodbanks and warm banks, shopping local to back jobs and enterprises in their high streets, and raising support through trade unions, charities and civil society bodies. Our plan for neighbourhoods will empower local people to take ownership for driving the renewal of their community.

Our country has all the raw ingredients to ignite growth—untapped talent and potential across every town, city, village and estate. But we also have people without enough to get by, and places and public services which have been hollowed out. People feel divided and disempowered, perceptions which are made worse by deprivation that for too long has been tackled with sticking-plaster politics.

Together, this Government will work in partnership with people on the ground and local authorities to deliver in every corner of the country. The plan for neighbourhoods is just the start: through the introduction of community right to buy and further initiatives to support high streets and communities, we will give people and places the resources and the powers they need to succeed. I will deposit a copy of the prospectus in the Library of the House.

Household Support Fund

Tuesday 4th March 2025 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Liz Kendall)]

This Government are committed to a sustainable, long-term approach to drive up opportunity and drive down poverty across the UK.

At the autumn Budget, we announced a one-year £742 million extension of the household support fund in England, from 1 April 2025 until 31 March 2026. The devolved Governments will receive consequential funding through the Barnett formula in the usual way, to be spent at their discretion.

We know that local authorities have the experience and relationships to determine how best to support those in their local areas. This extension of the household support fund will enable local authorities to provide everything from immediate crisis support such as food vouchers or warm winter clothing to more preventive approaches to tackling poverty, such as referring people to debt and other advice services, working with community and voluntary organisations to signpost people to wider support, and helping with costs of energy bills and white goods.

We also encourage local authorities to consider how their provision of crisis support could have a longer-term, sustainable impact, such as providing insulation or energy-efficient household items which reduce bills and repairing or replacing white goods and appliances.

The scheme guidance and funding allocations for the forthcoming extension will be shared with local authorities imminently.

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Ministry of Justice Contingency Fund Advance: 2024-25

Tuesday 4th March 2025 Written Statements

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Sarah Sackman)]

The Ministry of Justice requires an advance to discharge its commitments which are set out in its supplementary estimate 2024-25, published on 11 February 2025 as “HC 655 (Central Government Supply Estimates 2024-25, Supplementary Estimates)”.

This is a temporary cash advance due to the timing of Royal Assent for the Supply and Appropriation (Anticipation and Adjustments) Bill (“the Supply Bill”), and does not reflect an overspend.

Once the Supply Bill achieves Royal Assent the advance will be repaid in full.

Parliamentary approval for additional resources of £300,000,000 will be sought in a supplementary estimate for the Ministry of Justice. Pending that approval, urgent expenditure estimated at £300,000,000 will be met by repayable cash advances from the Contingencies Fund.

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