The Government is looking at a number of options to make changes to Employment Laws to ease the constraints that business leaders say the laws impose. The most prominent of these possible changes is that companies may be given the ability to sack workers during the first two years of their employment without the threat of being taken to a tribunal for unfair dismissal, whereas at present an employee can bring an unfair dismissal claim after only a year.
This “qualifying period” has been a political tool in the past. I cannot remember now when exactly the changes were made but for a substantial period during the long Tory reign from 1979 to 1997 the qualifying period was two years but before that it had been as little as six months which was probably too short. New Labour introduced the one year period not longer after being elected.
The present qualifying period of a year does not really deter good employers from recruiting. It gives them ample time to test a new employee who, if not up to scratch, can be dismissed without sanctions on the employer. Unfortunately, bad employers will continue to hire for the short term and get rid of staff shortly before the end of whatever qualifying period exists. However, if this change comes in. it is possible that those unlucky enough to be hired by bad employers will be retained for nearly two years rather than only nearly one year, as at present. That might in one sense be for the good.
This time limit would not affect discrimination based claims.
In addition, in an attempt to curb what are seen as the number of vexatious allegations, workers may have to pay a fee when lodging an Employment Tribunal claim. The word is that it would be refunded if the claim were to be successful. However, to deter unmeritorious claims a fee may have to be quite sizeable but then that may put off a sacked employee with a good claim from hazarding money which he needs to feed his family.
The Daily Telegraph reports that the Government is also reviewing whether small companies may be excused from some of the employment laws which are hard for them to handle because of their size. The period that firms have to pay workers SSP is also likely to be reduced as part of the review.
