{"id":17203,"date":"2016-10-13T17:12:38","date_gmt":"2016-10-13T16:12:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.dlapiper.com\/beaware\/?p=17203"},"modified":"2019-06-18T10:05:46","modified_gmt":"2019-06-18T09:05:46","slug":"brexit-timing-clarified-employment-law-set-to-continue-intact","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dlapiper.com\/beaware\/brexit-timing-clarified-employment-law-set-to-continue-intact\/","title":{"rendered":"Brexit timing clarified: employment law set to continue intact"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Conservative Party Conference has provided Theresa May, and her Government, with an opportunity to publicise their plans for the timing of Brexit.<\/p>\n<p class=\"removeMargin\">In her speech to the Conference on 2 October,\u00a0 the Prime Minster announced that &#8211;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty will be invoked by the end of March 2017, triggering the start of the UK&#8217;s formal withdrawal from the European Union. \u00a0At that point, the two year period of negotiations between the EU and the UK, to design the exit agreement, will commence. The UK will leave the Union by March 2019 (absent an agreed extension).<\/li>\n<li>In the next Queen&#8217;s Speech, which will be in either April or May 2017,\u00a0 a Great Repeal Bill will be introduced, to come into force on the date on which the UK actually leaves the EU.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Despite its rather grand name, the bill is simply a device to enable the Government to manage the process of separating UK law from EU law,\u00a0 where it decides that this is necessary. \u00a0\u00a0The bill will repeal the European Community Act 1972, the UK law that currently gives supremacy to EU law, and at the same time,\u00a0 will convert all existing EU law into UK law.<\/p>\n<p>This means that, as at the date of Brexit,\u00a0 there will be no immediate end to the applicability in the UK of EU derived laws,\u00a0 including employment laws.\u00a0\u00a0 Instead,\u00a0 they will remain intact and in place,\u00a0 with the Government\/Parliament then able to decide whether to retain or repeal or amend them at their leisure, post Brexit.<\/p>\n<p>For more information on and analysis of the Great Repeal Bill,\u00a0 click <a id=\"linkColor\" title=\"grb\" href=\"http:\/\/www.dlapiper.com\/en\/uk\/insights\/publications\/2016\/10\/the-great-british-repeal-bill\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"externallink noopener noreferrer\"><u><span style=\"color: #0066cc\">here.<\/span><\/u><\/a><\/p>\n<p>In terms of what these announcements mean for UK employment law,\u00a0 it remains the case that there is no immediate change.\u00a0 The plan is for EU derived employment laws to remain in place at Brexit and will continue until repealed or changed. \u00a0 In fact, it appears that there may be no Brexit-related change for quite some time, if at all,\u00a0 given that Theresa May also used her Conference speech\u00a0 to announce that, &#8220;existing workers&#8217; legal rights will continue to be guaranteed in law,\u00a0 and they will be guaranteed as long as I am Prime Minister&#8221;.\u00a0\u00a0 This has been confirmed by David Davis, the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, \u00a0who recently announced to Parliament that, &#8220;[the Great Repeal Act] will provide for a calm and orderly exit and give as much certainty as possible to employers, investors, consumers and workers.\u00a0 And we have been clear,\u00a0 UK employment law already goes further than EU law in many areas &#8211; and this Government will do nothing to undermine those rights in the workplace&#8221;. For a recent House of Commons briefing paper on &#8220;Brexit and Employment Law&#8221;,\u00a0 click <a title=\"t\" href=\"http:\/\/researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk\/documents\/CBP-7732\/CBP-7732.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"externallink noopener noreferrer\"><u><span style=\"color: #0066cc\">here<\/span><\/u><\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>It seems, \u00a0therefore, that businesses hoping that Brexit might provide an opportunity for rules on, for example, agency workers,\u00a0 holiday pay or discrimination compensation to be revisited could be disappointed in the short tem. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0This does not mean, however, that Theresa May&#8217;s Premiership will be a quiet time for employers. Announcements over recent weeks indicate that topics in which the Government is interested include both worker representation on company boards and the interaction between the regulatory framework surrounding employment and modern business models. The suggestion is that new regulation in these areas may be in the offing.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Conservative Party Conference has provided Theresa May, and her Government, with an opportunity to publicise their plans for the timing of Brexit. In her speech to the Conference on 2 October,\u00a0 the Prime Minster announced that &#8211; Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty will be invoked by the end of March 2017, triggering the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[132],"class_list":["post-17203","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-employment","tag-brexit"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dlapiper.com\/beaware\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dlapiper.com\/beaware\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dlapiper.com\/beaware\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dlapiper.com\/beaware\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dlapiper.com\/beaware\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17203"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dlapiper.com\/beaware\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17203\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dlapiper.com\/beaware\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dlapiper.com\/beaware\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dlapiper.com\/beaware\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}