Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Act 2023

Last month, the Government announced how it will legislate reforms to both the Working Time Regulations (WTR) and the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006.  This follows recent public consultations in which the government sought views on matters such as the management of annual leave entitlement and pay, irregular hour and part year workers, record keeping under the WTR and TUPE consultation obligations. 

As they are draft, these Regulations are not subject to change, however the final version is due to be in force from 1 January 2024. Below is an overview of the reforms they seek to make, however once the final version is published, we shall provide more detail as to what this means practically for employers: 

Working time and holiday 

• To remove the requirement for keeping records of daily working hours of all workers (few employers practice this anyway) if they can demonstrate compliance with the Working Time Regulations without doing so. 
• To remove the right to carry over annual leave specifically due to the COVID-19 pandemic.  
• To introduce rolled up holiday pay for irregular hours and part year workers only. The itemised pay statement must set out the amount of holiday pay paid in that pay period. 
• To allow the 12.07% method for calculating holiday entitlement for irregular hours and part year workers only. 

The latter two points will apply from the first annual leave year beginning on or after 1 April 2024. All other practices related to working time are set to remain the same.  

Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) (TUPE) 

• To allow businesses with fewer than 50 employees that are proposing a transfer of any size, to consult directly with their employees, where there are no existing representatives in place. 
• To allow businesses of any size that are proposing to transfer fewer than 10 employees to also consult directly with their employees, where there are no existing representatives in place. 

Where a business already has in place employee representatives and trade unions, then the requirement to consult with these parties will remain the case.