Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Agnew of Oulton on 22 June (HL5467) and given that notice payments to employees who are being made redundant are not redundancy payments, whether they will now answer the question put, namely whether it is their intention that employers are reimbursed under the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme for employees who are under notice of redundancy.

Pay during the redundancy notice period is based on the individual’s rights under their contract of employment and the statutory right to notice pay (under section 86 and the following sections of the Employment Rights Act 1996). The rules on statutory notice pay are complex and depend on whether the employer is required to give only statutory notice, or at least a week more than statutory notice, and whether the employee has normal working hours or not. For any period of notice which exceeds the minimum statutory requirement, the terms of the contract of employment would need to be considered.

In these very difficult times, the Government would not expect an employer to take advantage of the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, which has brought benefit to employers and employees alike, to make someone redundant on less favourable terms than they would otherwise have received.