Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, whether the conditions attached to the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme prevent companies from (a) treating the period during which staff are furloughed as a notice period prior to redundancy and (b) substituting pay for furloughed staff as redundancy pay; and if he will make a statement.

An individual’s pay during their redundancy notice period is based on their rights under their contract of employment and the statutory right to notice pay.

Employees who are dismissed due to redundancy and who satisfy certain qualifying conditions are also statutorily entitled to a lump sum from their employer, based on their age, length of service and contractual weekly earnings, subject to a statutory upper limit.

While individual’s redundancy rights will depend on their contractual terms and statutory protections, the Coronavirus Job Retention scheme does not prevent an individual who is using the scheme from being placed on redundancy notice. During this difficult period, we urge employers to exercise discretion and not use the Job Retention Scheme to make someone redundant on less favourable terms than they would otherwise have received.