EU equality laws to be reinstated to avoid ‘gap in protections’ for workers
The government has announced plans to reinstate EU equality laws before they expire at the end of the year – admitting the move is required to avoid a “clear gap in protections” for workers.
Ministers will today lay a statutory instrument intended to “enshrine” key rights and principles derived from the European Union into British law.
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It follows questions over whether some employment protections related to things like equal pay and maternity leave would be scrapped from January when The Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill comes into effect.
The controversial legislation – also known as the “Brexit Freedoms Bill” – will dispense with hundreds of Brussels-derived laws still on British statue books. It will also end the supremacy of EU law over UK law, erasing previous case law principles.
Trade unions and employment lawyers had warned this would create uncertainty over key protections for British workers which derive from the EU and don’t exist in British law.
The government said its update today means “that necessary protections are clearly stated in our domestic legislation”.
One legal expert welcomed the announcement – but said it raised “legitimate questions” around what gains had been made from post-Brexit sovereignty if EU laws are simply going to be replicated.
The protections being retained include the “single-source” test, which gives women the right to equal pay with men for doing work of equal value, and preventing women from experiencing less favourable treatment at work because they are breastfeeding.
Other laws being retained include:
• Protecting women from unfavourable treatment after they return from maternity leave, where that treatment is in connection with a pregnancy or a pregnancy-related illness occurring before their return;
• Ensuring that women can continue to receive special treatment from their employer in connection with maternity, for example through enhanced occupational maternity schemes;
• Confirming that the definition of disability in the context of employment will explicitly cover working life;
• Holding employers accountable if they create or allow discriminatory recruitment conditions, such as if they make public discriminatory statements about access to employment in their organisation;
• Providing explicit protections from indirect discrimination by association, so that those who may be caught up and disadvantaged by discrimination against others are also protected.
The move could risk angering Eurosceptic Tories, who want to see the UK move away from the EU’s influence.
Max Winthrop, the chair of the Law Society’s Employment Law Committee, welcomed the clarification that vital rights “would not be for the legislative dustbin as of December 31st”.
However, he said the move does raise “legitimate questions” about the point of Brexit, from a sovereignty standpoint.
“When we are effectively replicating legislation from the EU, and I can understand why the government have done that because it would not be particularly popular to say ‘let’s scrap maternity rights’, it does leave the big question as to what exactly is it that we’ve gained from leaving the EU,” he told Sky News.
“We haven’t gained what was sometimes referred to as the Singapore-on-the-Thames approach. In other words, to deregulate the marketplace. So you then have to ask yourself the question, is the loss of seamless trade throughout the European Economic Area really worth the cattle?”.
He added that the announcement shows why the original plan to scrap all remaining EU laws by the end of this year “would have probably been disastrous”.
“It shows the complexity of junking 40 years worth of (EU) legislation, and the sorts of steps we’ve had to go through to maintain the protections that a lot of people probably thought they already had.”
The Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill was originally intended to scrap all EU-era laws which were kept in place after the Brexit transition period in order to minimise disruption to businesses.
But the promised bonfire of Brussels rules and regulations was dramatically scaled-back in May, with less than 600 now set to be junked by the end of this year.
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Kemi Badenoch was told off in the House of Commons by the Speaker of the House
Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch said the change was necessary because of the “risks of legal uncertainty” caused by automatically scrapping some 4,000 laws, but there was significant backlash from within the Conservative Party, with arch-Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg accusing the prime minister of “behaving like a Borgia”.
Notes accidently left on the press release announcing today’s measures suggest some concern that retaining the protections could rile up the right wing of the party.
The notes discussed how to answer questions about why the government isn’t scrapping the protections, and whether maintaining discrimination laws would threaten free speech and “make businesses feel they must follow the woke agenda”.
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The document stresses that if the EU laws aren’t retained, “employers would in some circumstances be able to make statements, for example, that they wouldn’t hire people because they are black. That is not right and not in line with Britain’s proud history of equality and fair play”.
“We are only restating laws where there would otherwise be a clear gap in protections: this is an area where we think the law needs to be strong and clear,” the document says.
A government spokesperson said: “We are committed to ensuring that the fundamental rights and freedoms of people in the United Kingdom remain protected.
“Our work is ensuring that necessary protections are retained and will end the inherent uncertainty of relying on judicial interpretations of EU law.
“Today’s update will ensure that Great Britain maintains its proud history of equality and that necessary protections are clearly stated in our domestic legislation.”
King’s Speech live: Watch our special programme on Sky News, hosted by Sophy Ridge, from 10.30am on Tuesday. You will also be able to follow the event live via the Politics Hub on the Sky News app and website.
The last blast furnaces left operating in Britain could see their fate sealed within days, after their Chinese owners took the decision to cut off the crucial supply of ingredients keeping them running.
Jingye, the owner of British Steel in Scunthorpe, has, according to union representatives, cancelled future orders for the iron ore, coal and other raw materials needed to keep the furnaces running.
The upshot is that they may have to close next month – even sooner than the earliest date suggested for its closure.
Read more: Thousands of jobs at risk as British Steel consults unions over closure
The fate of the blast furnaces – the last two domestic sources of virgin steel, made from iron ore rather than recycled – is likely to be determined in a matter of days, with the Department for Business and Trade now actively pondering nationalisation.
The upshot is that even as Britain contends with a trade war across the Atlantic, it is now working against the clock to secure the future of steelmaking at Scunthorpe.
The talks between the government and Jingye broke down last week after the Chinese company, which bought British Steel out of receivership in 2020, rejected a £500m offer of public money to replace the existing furnaces with electric arc furnaces.
The sum is the same one it offered to Tata Steel, which has shut down the other remaining UK blast furnaces in Port Talbot and is planning to build electric furnaces – which have far lower carbon emissions.
These steel workers could soon be out of work
However, the owners argue that the amount is too little to justify extra investment at Scunthorpe, and said last week they were now consulting on the date of shutting both the blast furnaces and the attached steelworks.
Since British Steel is the main provider of steel rails to Network Rail – as well as other construction steels available from only a few sites in the world – the closure would leave the UK more reliant on imports for critical infrastructure sites.
However, since the site belongs to its Chinese owners, a decision to nationalise the site would involve radical steps government officials are wary of taking.
They also fear leaving taxpayers exposed to a potentially loss-making business for the long run.
The dilemma has been heightened by the sharp turn in geopolitical sentiment following Donald Trump’s return to the White House.
The incipient trade war and threatened cut in American support to Europe have sparked fresh calls for countries to act urgently to secure their own supplies of critical materials, especially those used for defence and infrastructure.
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Gareth Stace, head of UK Steel, the industry lobby group, said: “Talks seem to have broken down between government and British Steel.
“My advice to government is: please, Jonathan Reynolds, Business Secretary, get back round that negotiating table, thrash out a deal, and if a deal can’t be found in the next few days, then I fear for the very future of the sector, but also here for Scunthorpe steelworks.”
British Steel declined to comment.
UK
Prince Andrew’s Pitch@Palace branded ‘crude attempt to enrich himself’ as Chinese spy documents set to be released
Prince Andrew’s efforts to make money from his Pitch@Palace project have been branded as a “crude attempt to enrich himself” at the expense of “unsuspecting tech founders”, as new documents may shed more light on what he and his team have been attempting to sell.
Today is the deadline for documents to be released relating to Prince Andrew‘s former senior adviser Dominic Hampshire and his interactions with the alleged Chinese spy Yang Tengbo.
In February, an immigration tribunal heard how the intelligence services had contacted Mr Hampshire about Mr Yang back in 2022. Mr Yang helped set up Pitch@Palace China, a branch of the duke’s scheme to help young entrepreneurs.
The alleged Chinese spy, Yang Tengbo, has links with Prince Andrew
Yang Tengbo. Pic: Pitch@Palace
Judges banned Mr Yang from the UK, saying his association with a senior royal had made Prince Andrew “vulnerable” and posed a threat to national security. Mr Yang challenged that decision at the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC).
Since that hearing, media organisations have applied for certain documents relating to the case and Mr Hampshire’s support for Mr Yang to be made public. SIAC agreed to release some information of public interest. It is hoped they may include more details on deals that he was trying to do on behalf of Prince Andrew.
So what do we know about potential deals for Pitch@Palace so far?
In February, Sky News confirmed that palace officials had a meeting last summer with tech funding company StartupBootcamp to discuss a potential tie-up between them and Prince Andrew relating to his Pitch@Palace project.
The palace wasn’t involved in the fine details of a deal but wanted guarantees to make sure it wouldn’t impact the Royal Family in the future. Sky News understands from one source that the price being discussed for Pitch was around £750,000 – there are, however, reports that a deal may have stalled.
Photos we found on the Chinese Chamber of Commerce website show an event held in Asia between StartupBootcamp and Innovate Global, believed to be an offshoot of Pitch.
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Documents, released in relation to the investigations into Mr Tengbo, have also shown how much the duke has always seen Pitch as a way of potentially making money. One document from 21 August 2021 clearly states “the duke needed money at the time, and saw the relationships with China through Pitch as one possible source of funding”.
But Prince Andrew’s apparent intention to use Pitch to make money has led to concerns about whether he is unfairly using the contacts and information he gained when he was a working royal.
Norman Baker, former MP and author of books on royal finances, believes it is “a crude attempt to enrich himself” and goes against what the tech entrepreneurs thought they were signing up for.
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He told Sky News: “The data given by these business people was given on the basis it was an official operation and not something for Prince Andrew, and so in my view, Prince Andrew had no right legally or morally to take the data which has been collected, a huge amount of data, and sell it…
“And quite clearly if you’re going to sell it off to StartupBootcamp, that is not what people had in mind. The entrepreneurs who joined Pitch@Palace did not do so to enrich Prince Andrew,” he said.
Rich Wilson was one tech entrepreneur who was approached at the start of Pitch@Palace to sign up, but he stepped away when he spotted a clause in the contract saying they’d be entitled to 2% equity in any funding he secured.
He feels Prince Andrew is continuing to use those he made a show of supporting.
He said: “It makes me feel sick. I think it’s terrible – that he is continuing to exploit unsuspecting tech founders in this way. A lot of them, I’m quite grey and old in the tooth now, I saw it coming, but clearly most didn’t. And a lot of them were quite young.
“It’ll be their first venture and you’re learning on the trot, so to speak. So to take advantage of people in such a major way – that’s an awful, sickening thing to do.”
We approached StartupBootcamp who said they had no comment to make, and the Duke of York’s office did not respond.
With reports that a deal may have stalled, it could be a big setback for the duke – especially with questions still about how he’ll continue to pay for his home on the Windsor estate now that the King no longer gives him financial support.
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