Source · Select Committees · Business and Trade Committee
Recommendation 6
6
Deferred
Prioritise review of worker status and address false self-employment immediately.
Recommendation
While the Committee welcomes the Government’s plans to reform worker status and bogus self-employment, it must proceed at pace to turn ambition into action. If it does not, it risks more companies adopting a ‘self-employment’ model for their workforces to side-step the measures in the Employment Rights Bill. In the words of the Director of Labour Market Enforcement, the Government can consult until ‘the cows come home.’ It needs to act now if it wants the Employment Rights Bill to succeed. The Government must prioritise its review of employee, worker and self-employed status immediately, and as a priority address false self- employment, so that these reforms are rolled out alongside commencement of the Employment Rights Bill. (Recommendation, Paragraph 39)
Government Response Summary
The government acknowledges the complexity of the employment status framework and the issue of bogus self-employment but states that consulting on and implementing reforms to create a simpler framework is a longer-term goal that will take time, rather than prioritising it immediately alongside the Employment Rights Bill.
Government Response
Deferred
HM Government
Deferred
The Government recognises that the UK’s current employment status framework is complex, and that this can cause difficulties for employers, workers, and the genuinely self-employed. This includes its contribution to the rise of so-called ‘bogus’ self-employment. It is unacceptable for any employer to seek to avoid their new or existing obligations, and deny people their employment rights. The Government is aware of the potential for new models of work to proliferate in an attempt to do this and is committed to consulting on reform to employment status. Some reforms in the Plan to Make Work Pay will take longer to undertake and implement, and the Government sees consulting on a simpler employment status framework as a longer-term goal. It will take time to adequately develop and consult on such a far-reaching change to employment law – it is important to get any changes to the employment status framework right.