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The Labour Party has unveiled its 2024 manifesto with a strong focus on transforming the workplace, supporting small businesses, and ensuring fair treatment for all workers.
Here’s an overview of the key business-centric pledges:
Genuine Living Wage: Labour commits to raising the minimum wage to a genuine living wage that reflects the cost of living.
Ban on Exploitative Zero-Hour Contracts: Labour aims to end zero-hour contracts and ensure all workers have secure and predictable hours.
Ending Fire and Rehire Practices: Labour will legislate against the practice of firing and rehiring workers on less favourable terms.
Support for Small Businesses: Labour plans to reform business rates, tackle late payments, and remove barriers for small business exporters.
Flexible Working Rights: Labour will make flexible working the default from day one unless there are significant business reasons against it.
New Deal for Working People: This includes strengthening trade unions and enhancing collective bargaining rights.
Expert Opinions
Support for older workers
Dr. Carole Easton OBE, Chief Executive at the Centre for Ageing Better, welcomes Labour’s plans to develop a new national jobs and careers service but criticises the manifesto for its lack of tailored support for older workers. She emphasises the need for specific commitments to support workers over 50, who could add significant value to the economy if given equal opportunities.
“A new approach is needed” says Dr Easton.
“The manifesto rightly highlights that one in eight young people are not in education, employment, or training. But what about older workers disproportionately locked out from finding work, staying in work or receiving training and development opportunities? Unlocking the full potential of older workers could deliver an additional £9 billion to the economy and £1.6 billion to the Treasury every year.
“To do that, parties need to recognise the need for a targeted approach. Improved and tailored employment support for older workers, greater opportunity to upskill, reskill and train for people in their 50s and 60s, increased flexible working and carers’ leave. Unless targeted action is taken, employment opportunities for people over 50 will continue to stagnate, and so too will the UK economy."
Pensions
Steven Cameron, Pensions Director at Aegon, highlights Labour’s commitment to retaining the State Pension Triple Lock for five more years, ensuring valuable increases for pensioners. However, he notes the absence of plans to address the rising state pension age or changes to pensions tax relief, which could impact wealth creation for future retirees.
He says: “With older generations typically more likely to vote, policies for pensioners will always be a key focus in General Election campaigning.
“But pensions aren’t just important to ‘older people’ – government policies on pension savings, investment and economic growth also play a huge role in helping people save for their retirements.”
He adds: “Neither the Labour nor Conservative Manifesto makes any mention of when planned enhancements might be advanced. These would open up automatic enrolment from age 18 rather than 22 and would gradually increase the minimum contributions to 8% of earnings from the first £1, rather than only on earnings above £6,240.
“We very much hope whoever is in power advances this as a priority to start the journey towards more adequate pension savings.”
Small business support
Tina McKenzie, Policy Chair of the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB), commends Labour’s commitment to small business support, including reforms to business rates and measures to tackle late payments.
“It’s good to see Labour's clear manifesto commitment to deliver its small business plan in Government, and that it recognises the crucial importance of the UK’s small firms and the self-employed,” she says.
"If Labour wins the election, small businesses will want to see action to deliver on this plan in the first week, with a Small Business Act in the first King's Speech.
“Pledges to reform business rates, legislate to tackle late payments by big businesses to their smaller suppliers, and remove barriers for small business exporters are welcome proposals, and FSB has been working on a cross-party basis to secure action on these crucial policy issues.
“Strengthening the British Business Bank’s mandate to support growth in the regions would be a positive step to back small businesses across the country.
“As questions swirl around tax in this election, the UK’s 5.5 million entrepreneurs – who generate the jobs and growth that should be at the core of Labour's mission - will want to hear more reassurance from the party on the huge taxes small firms already pay at every stage of running their businesses.”
Pay gap reporting and equality
Melissa Blissett from Barnett Waddingham praises Labour’s plans to introduce disability and ethnicity pay gap reporting, which can enhance workplace fairness and productivity. She stresses the need for employers to start collecting relevant data to ensure meaningful analysis and avoid negative impacts on talent management and investment.
Blissett comments: “Unlocking the working potential of women and ethnically diverse employees will be key to enhancing UK productivity, and the next Government would do well to prioritise it. As such, it's positive to see the policy already taking shape in Labour's manifesto.
"The biggest hurdle in ethnicity pay gap reporting is achieving a high enough disclosure rate from employees for meaningful analysis. This takes time and good communications to achieve. Therefore, employers should act to start collecting data now, if they aren’t already. Otherwise, their reporting figures could show them in poor light to peers, impacting future talent management and potentially investment in their organisations.
"Lessons also need to be learnt from gender pay gap reporting – reporting itself is not enough to change the dial. Going beyond the reporting figures and analysing the underlying data to monitor trends, progress and potential blockers/drivers of the pay gap will be important. Employers should also seek to embed fair pay within the design of employee benefit packages. All too often we are still seeing employers offering tiered pension contribution structures – effectively further rewarding those with higher disposable incomes and widening the gender and ethnicity pension gap."
Employment law changes
Maree Cassaidy, Associate at Fox and Partners, highlights several proposed employment law changes, including extending employment rights to all workers, making unfair dismissal rights available from day one, and banning exploitative zero-hour contracts. These changes could lead to increased litigation and higher costs for employers, particularly small businesses.
Cassaidy warns: “Whilst these proposals are well intended, much more needs to be done to mitigate the pressures the proposals will create for the tribunal system and smaller firms and organisations. Labour needs to provide greater clarity on what form the proposals will take – and how they will be enforced.”
Immigration
Louise Haycock of Fragomen, a global immigration law firm, points out that Labour's manifesto is light on details regarding immigration policies.
She explains: “The party has pledged an overall commitment to reduce numbers and to link training to usage of visas with an obligation to upskill workers, yet it is unclear what would be put in place to achieve this.
“Joined up thinking across the Migration Advisory Committee, skills bodies and government departments is commendable but the ‘how’ is very much missing.
“The ideas and ambitions all appear long term. What is missing is the changes needed to address problems that require immediate action. Ambitions to train the UK population cannot be answer to today’s skill shortages and the growth in the economy that is required now.”
Flexible workforce
Matt Fryer, MD of Brookson Group, which provides specialist services for freelancers, contractors and the self-employed workforce, comments: “There are few surprises in the Labour Manifesto, but employers and workers in the temporary workforce will welcome the promise of a full consultation before new legislation is passed.
“Keir Starmer’s balancing act is to improve workers’ rights and protections in a way that also works for businesses. The area where this will be a particular challenge is for the flexible workforces that keep our economy going. The trick is to protect gig workers whilst avoiding unintended problems for independent contractors and freelancers who keep our hospitals and schools open, build our homes, keep our IT systems up to date and deliver engineering and infrastructure projects that keep the country moving.”
Fryer goes on: “If not properly thought through, simplification of employment status could further penalise independent contractors, while a ban on zero hours contracts could prevent businesses from accessing workers as and when they are needed. Unintended consequences could range from further worker exploitation and a return to a widespread rise in illegal tax avoidance schemes to a restriction of economic growth and gaps in frontline services.”
“Keeping everyone in the flexible workforce and its supply chain happy is no easy feat, but ensuring that businesses can access a pool of skilled workers, as and when they are needed, is essential to ensuring the health of the UK’s economy and public infrastructure.”
Balancing 'pro-worker' with 'pro-business'
Amanda Glover, Associate in the employment team at Clarkslegal LLP says: "Labour has put wealth creation at the heart of its manifesto and has sought to position itself as both pro-business and pro-worker, arguing that business-friendly policies deliver growth and decent employment, whilst worker-friendly policies deliver productivity and business success.
"The manifesto did not add any new policy commitments from an employment perspective, that were not already covered in the previously published 'Labour’s Plan to Make Work Pay: Delivering a New Deal for Working People'.
"The philosophy and direction of travel is clear and this is likely to result in one of the most radical reforms of the world of work in decades. Employers and HR have been warned they will see action around the banning of fire and rehire, the banning of exploitative zero-hours contracts, the granting of basic day-one rights such as protection against unfair dismissal, the movement towards a single status of worker, greater protections from dismissal for pregnant women, extending pay gap reporting to include ethnicity and disability, ensuring the minimum wage is a real living wage, establishing a single enforcement body for employment rights, enhanced protections for unions and the strengthening of collective bargaining.
"However, the devil will be in the detail when it comes to determining whether the changes will go far enough to protect workers whilst remaining business-friendly.
"Labour’s belief that it can be pro-business and pro-worker, whilst undoubtedly genuinely held, has an electoral advantage, enabling the party to build the broadest possible coalition of voters. However, the detail could well destabilise that coalition, which is why I do not expect it to emerge before 4 July. Unfortunately, employment practitioners will have to wait to see how the cards will fall, but this is not an excuse for failing to scenario plan around the broad tenets of policy which are widely known."
Conclusion
The Labour Party’s 2024 manifesto outlines ambitious plans to transform the workplace and support small businesses.
Key policies include raising the minimum wage, banning exploitative contracts, and enhancing flexible working rights.
However, experts highlight potential challenges and the need for careful implementation to avoid unintended consequences, particularly for small businesses and flexible workforces. HR leaders should prepare for significant changes in employment law and workplace practices, ensuring their organisations can adapt to and thrive under new regulations.
Reactions to the manifesto launches of the other major parties can be found here:
