New Year / New Law
We’re already a few weeks into 2021 and the outlook for the new year continues to remain uncertain in so many respects. But let’s look at a few things that we do know.
We’re now in lockdown #3 which, for those in England, is due to end no earlier than mid-February 2021 – but we can expect significant restrictions to continue, probably on and off, for many months thereafter; this will give rise to ongoing operational and financial uncertainty for both business and individuals for some time to come.
The Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (furlough scheme) is due to end on 30 April 2021 – but has already been extended several times and may be extended again in some form, perhaps with changes to employer contributions like last summer; this is likely to be followed by significant HMRC activity seeking to reclaim from and/or prosecute those businesses who have submitted fraudulent or just inadvertently incorrect claims.
Many of us are now working from home and will want to continue doing so until we’ve been vaccinated – but we will probably also want to continue thereafter to some degree where we’ve found it to have improved our work/life balance; this will tie in with the Government’s announcement back in December 2019 that it would make flexible working the legal default position unless an employer has a good reason to reject it.
There will be a post-vaccination “new normal” in the majority of workplaces – but we’re not really sure what that will look like at the moment; the demand by vaccinated adults to take staycations all at the same time with long-accrued holiday will need to be carefully managed with summer bookings by those over 50 already increasing dramatically.
Many staff will have been happy to have been working from home for at least 15 months by this summer – but the mental health of others will have been adversely affected by isolation from colleagues and perhaps even having been unable to escape from an abusive home environment; the Government has recently been impressing on employers their duty to support staff who suffer domestic abuse and which may have been exacerbated by lockdown.
The Brexit transition period has now ended and we are no longer bound by EU law or the judgments of the EU Court of Justice going forwards – but it is likely that nothing will change for the foreseeable future as a result of the implications of the last-minute UK/EU trade and co-operation agreement; let’s hope however that the EU decides that the UK’s data protection law is adequate to permit ongoing data flows after the extension of four months (extendable to six months) already granted.
Various statutory payment amounts will increase on 6 April 2021 with new rates for the national living and minimum wages having already been announced – but we’re still waiting to find out the increases in other sums such as a week’s pay for statutory redundancy pay purposes.
Whatever 2021 brings, please contact the team at Synchrony Law whenever you have any employment law queries and we’ll endeavour to keep you up-to-date as the year progresses.
Consultant
14 January 2021