EU equality laws to be reinstated to avoid ‘gap in protections’ for workers

Published

2 years ago

November 7, 2023

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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”.

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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.

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”.

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.

Politics

All four UK governments ‘failed to appreciate’ scale of COVID pandemic threat – inquiry finds

Published

3 hours ago

November 20, 2025

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All four UK governments 'failed to appreciate' scale of COVID pandemic threat - inquiry finds

All four UK governments failed to appreciate the scale of the threat posed by COVID-19 or the urgency of the response the pandemic required, a damning report published on Thursday has claimed.

Baroness Heather Hallett, the chair of the inquiry, described the response to the pandemic as “too little, too late”.

Tens of thousands of lives could have been saved during the first wave of COVID-19 had a mandatory lockdown been introduced a week earlier, the inquiry also found.

Noting how a “lack of urgency” made a mandatory lockdown “inevitable”, the report references modelling data to claim there could have been 23,000 fewer deaths during the first wave in England had it been introduced a week earlier.

The UK government first introduced advisory restrictions on 16 March 2020, including self-isolation, household quarantine and social distancing.

Had these measures been introduced sooner, the report states, the mandatory lockdown which followed from 23 March might not have been necessary at all.

COVID-19 first emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan at the end of 2019, and as it developed into a worldwide pandemic, the UK went in and out of unprecedented lockdown measures for two years starting from March 2020.

Lady Hallett admitted in her summary that politicians in the government and devolved administrations were forced to make decisions where “there was often no right answer or good outcome”.

“Nonetheless,” she said, “I can summarise my findings of the response as ‘too little, too late'”.

Report goes long way to answer inquiry’s critics

This scathing report goes a long way to answer the Covid 19 Inquiry’s critics who have consistently attacked it as a costly waste of time.

They tried to undermine Lady Hallet’s attempt to understand what went wrong and how we might do better as a lame exercise that would achieve very little.

Well, we now know that Boris Johnson’s “toxic and chaotic” government could well have prevented at least 23,000 deaths had they acted sooner and with greater urgency.

The response was “too little, too late”. And that nobody in power truly understood the scale of the emerging threat or the urgency of the response it required.

The grieving families who lost loved ones in the pandemic want answers. They want names. And they want accountability.

But that is beyond the remit of this Inquiry.

The publication of the report into Module 2 will bring them no comfort, it may even cause them more distress but it will bring them closer to understanding why the UK’s response to this unprecedented health crisis was so poor.

And we can easily identify the “advisors and ministers whose alleged rule breaking caused huge distress and undermined public confidence”.

Or who was in charge of the Department of Health and Social Care, as it misled the public by giving the impression that the UK was well prepared for the pandemic when it clearly was not.

‘Toxic culture’ at the heart of UK government

The report said there was “a toxic and chaotic culture” at the heart of the UK government during the pandemic.

The inquiry heard evidence about the “destabilising behaviour of a number of individuals” – including former No 10 adviser Dominic Cummings.

It said that by failing to tackle this chaotic culture – “and, at times, actively encouraging it” – former PM Boris Johnson “reinforced a culture in which the loudest voices prevailed and the views of other colleagues, particularly women, often went ignored, to the detriment of good decision-making”.

‘Misleading assurances’

The inquiry found all four governments in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland failed to understand the urgency of response the pandemic demanded in the early part of 2020.

The report reads: “This was compounded, in part, by misleading assurances from the Department of Health and Social Care and the widely held view that the UK was well prepared for a pandemic.”

The report notes how the UK government took a “high risk” when it significantly eased restrictions in England in July 2020 – “despite scientific advisers’ concerns about the public health risks of doing so”.

Lady Hallett has made 19 key recommendations which, if followed, she believes will better protect the UK in any future pandemic and improve decision-making in a crisis.

Repeated failings ‘inexcusable’

In a statement following the publication of Thursday’s report, Lady Hallett said there was a “serious failure” by all four governments to appreciate the level of “risk and calamity” facing the UK.

She said: “The tempo of the response should have been increased. It was not. February 2020 was a lost month.”

Lady Hallett said the inquiry does not advocate for national lockdowns, which she said should have been avoided if at all possible.

She said: “But to avoid them, governments must take timely and decisive action to control a spreading virus. The four governments of the UK did not.”

Lady Hallett said none of the governments were adequately prepared for the challenges and risks that a lockdown presented, and that many of the same failings were repeated later in 2020, which she said was “inexcusable”.

She added: “Each government had ample warning that the prevalence of the virus was increasing and would continue to do so into the winter months. Yet again, there was a failure to take timely and effective action.”

Politics

Prospective CFTC chair’s nomination advances through committee

Published

3 hours ago

November 20, 2025

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Prospective CFTC chair’s nomination advances through committee

Michael Selig’s nomination to chair the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission is headed for a vote on the Senate floor after clearing a committee hurdle.

In a Thursday notice, Republican leaders with the Senate Agriculture Committee said they had advanced Selig’s nomination following a Wednesday hearing. The vote was reportedly along party lines, with no Democrats supporting Selig as US President Donald Trump’s pick to replace acting Chair Caroline Pham.

Politics, Government, Congress, CFTC — *Source:* *Senate Agriculture Committee Republicans*

The prospective CFTC chair answered questions from senators on Wednesday regarding potential conflicts of interest, his policy positions on DeFi and digital assets and the dearth of leadership at the federal agency. Coinbase chief legal officer Paul Grewal supported his confirmation, citing Selig’s support for a digital asset market structure bill moving through Congress.

Selig was Trump’s second pick to chair the CFTC following the withdrawal of Brian Quintenz’s nomination. Selig will need support from at least 50 senators to be confirmed.

Four commissioner seats are still open

Even if Selig were to be confirmed quickly, Trump has not announced any nominees to fill the two remaining Republican and two Democratic seats at the CFTC. Since September, Pham has served as the agency’s sole Republican commissioner.