Government does U-turn but rights still at risk

As unions, employers and environmental groups have been warning for months, the legislation, the brainchild of Jacob Rees-Mogg, was a recipe for chaos.

It had provided for all laws derived from EU law (except those in Acts of Parliament) to be automatically ditched at the end of this year. Only those chosen by ministers to be saved would be saved.

A belated U-turn means the government has instead listed the laws it intends to revoke, allowing for greater scrutiny.

Workers’ rights have been left pretty-much untouched although we will continue to comb the list for hidden nasties.

The government will make it easier for upper courts to refuse to consider bids to overturn established case law, which should give a degree of legal certainty.

But we shouldn’t be lulled into a false sense of security

As it stands, ministers will gain so-called Henry VIII powers that allow them to revoke legislation via regulation.

So holiday pay, parental rights and health and safety protections remain vulnerable to the whims of a Secretary of State.

The principles of direct effect, supremacy of EU law and general principles of EU law will be removed, and courts encouraged to depart from case law. This risks both creating considerable uncertainty on the interpretation of existing rights and in gumming up the courts and tribunal system with cases.

It also appears, in face of all the evidence to the contrary, that the government remains wedded to a policy programme that sees axing rights as the route to economic growth.

A policy paper published yesterday gives an indication of some of the government’s intentions.

These include:

• reducing record keeping requirements for working time purposes
• “introducing” rolled-up holiday pay, and merging the current two separate leave entitlements into one pot of statutory annual leave.

Meanwhile when workers’ employment is transferred, the government wants to remove the need for smaller businesses to consult with elected employee representatives.

In a possible harbinger of things to come the papers says the government is “reviewing and reforming our domestic regulations which we legislated independently of the EU and too often still hold back business”.

So while ministers might have seen some sense this week, workers must stay alert to threats in the future.