Prime Minister Liz Truss has recently announced that thousands of small to medium-sized UK businesses will be released from reporting requirements and other regulations as part of the government’s plans to boost business growth.
In her announcement on Sunday 2nd October, Liz Truss detailed that companies with up to 500 staff would now be treated the same way as small businesses with fewer than 50 staff. This means an additional 40,000 SMEs will be freed from the current regulations that many view as a burden to their day-to-day operation.
In a statement, the government said the change in the threshold would come into force from Monday 3rd October to all new regulations under development as well as those under current and future review, including retained EU laws. It will look at raising the threshold even more for companies with fewer than 1,000 staff in future.
The government has assured those businesses affected that these new exemptions will be applied in a proportionate way, to ensure workers’ rights and other standards will be protected.
However, unions have expressed their concerns about the potential impact on working women and pay parity. This new legislation has the potential to affect all aspects of Employment Law, including discrimination law, agency workers, equal pay and more.
This government is trying to pursue radical free market policies … we are already a fairly liberal country when it comes to the protections afforded by employment law, so it’s hard to envisage too many real changes being enacted.
