What will the 2005 general election mean for HR?

Employment policies will be an important part of the expected 2005 general election campaign, with childcare and work-life balance featuring prominently.

While the main political parties have yet to publish their election manifestos, a strong picture of their respective positions on employment - and the implications for HR - can be built from content published on HR & Compliance Centre. This necessarily focuses on Labour's policies, as the Government has offered many clues regarding the priorities of a third term in power, while the opposition parties have not yet outlined their full range of proposals.

The Chancellor's pre-Budget report on 2 December 2004, for example, went a long way towards previewing what a Labour win would mean for employers. As well as outlining third-term policies on skills and corporate taxation, the report sketched out Labour's 10-year strategy on childcare in a bid to make Labour the party of working parents. The Conservatives, meanwhile, have unveiled their own proposals to help parents achieve an appropriate work-life balance.

In the table below, we present details of where Labour, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats stand on the critical issues, together with links to a selection of relevant articles.

Labour

Childcare/work-life balance

  • Legislation to extend paid maternity leave to 12 months and give mothers the right to transfer a proportion of their paid leave to the child's father, to come into effect by the end of the next Parliament.
  • Launch 10-year strategy to expand the availability of affordable, 'wraparound' childcare.
  • Consultation on extension of right to request flexible working to parents of older children.

    • Skills

  • Extend Employer Training pilots to cover the whole of the UK.
  • Roll out Pathways to Work pilot scheme for the sick and disabled to one third of the country.
    •

    Corporate taxation

  • End tax avoidance schemes that seek to sidestep the rules that deal with rewards paid to employees in the form of shares and other securities.

    Public sector efficiency

  • The Government plans to cut 84,150 Whitehall jobs, and 20,000 in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, in a bid to save £20bn a year.
  • Commitment to cutting Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) staff levels by 1,500 by 2007/08.

    • Agency workers

  • The Government is believed to have agreed to drop its opposition to the European Agency Workers Directive - which would give temporary workers the same pay and rights as permanent staff - in exchange for union support in the election. This is said to be part of the Prime Minister's agreement with the Warwick Policy Forum - a 56-point deal agreed in July 2004.

    Pensions

  • A third term would see the 'design of a pension system that has the basic state pension at its core', to give 'special help to the poorest' and 'provide incentives to save for hard-working families whatever their wealth or income', signalling a possible move away from the current system of means-testing.
  • The new pension arrangement would be funded in part by savings from moving more people off benefits and into work.
  • Enforced introduction of automatic enrolment (with an opt-out option for employees) in some workplace pension schemes.
  • Creation of a £3 million 'challenge fund' to 'generate more workplace advice by specially trained trade union representatives'.


    Corporate manslaughter

  • Legislation on corporate manslaughter was a Labour manifesto promise in 2001, but has been persistently delayed. Plans for the publication of a draft Bill introducing a new offence of corporate manslaughter were among the measures announced in the Queen's speech in November 2004.

    Women in the workplace

  • DTI-funded Equal Pay Experts Panel to be launched.
  • Year-long Women and Work inquiry, looking at all issues of gender equality, including promotion, pay levels and sexual discrimination, to report in 2005.

    Conservatives

    Childcare/ work-life balance

  • Minimum weekly payment of £150 for the full 12 months of the child's first year.
  • Allow fathers to share their partner's leave from work after the birth of the baby.
  • Allow parents to use their childcare tax credit to pay 'informal carers' such as grandparents and friends, rather than only being able to spend it on a registered childminder or nursery place as at present.
    •

    Employment law

  • Amend or repeal a 'host' of employment legislation, including the post-October 2004 statutory dismissal procedure.

    Public sector efficiency

  • Immediate freeze on civil service recruitment.
  • Around 200,000 civil service jobs would be cut, including the reduction of DTI staff from 4,000 to 850. At DTI the "core responsibilities of those remaining would be to champion business and business deregulation". Closure of the Cabinet Office, Department for Constitutional Affairs and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.

    • Pensions

  • Widen access to state pension to include low-paid workers and those who work for less than 10 years.
  • Improve pensions rights of those who care for children and relatives.
  • Increase pensions saving flexibility with a single 'lifetime' savings account in which money would be accessible, but could be put towards a pension.

    New Deal

  • Abolish the New Deal schemes, to achieve annual savings of £666m.
  • Outsource work done by Jobcentre Plus (saving £1.2bn pa).

    Liberal Democrats

    Public sector efficiency

  • Abolish the DTI and scale down the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
  • Cut severely the DTI's industrial support programmes.

    Equal opportunities

  • Fast-track age discrimination legislation for immediate implementation.
  • Encourage a 'flexible decade' of phased retirement.

    Pensions

  • Increase a Citizen's Pension, abolish means testing.
  • Make occupational pensions 'opt out', rather than 'opt in'.
  • Establish a kite mark system for occupational pensions schemes.
  • Introduce a National Savings pensions product.

    Also

    Growth set to continue: Pre-Budget Report 2004    Writing in IRS Employment Review, Adam Geldman presents an in-depth analysis of the report.

    Where do the politicians stand on childcare?   Writing in Personnel Today, Sunday Times political editor David Cracknell weighs up proposals from Labour and the Conservatives.

    Maternity pay to rise to nine months - then extend to fathers   HR & Compliance Centre presents extensive coverage of the Chancellor's pre-Budget report.

    Unions focus on four big issues prior to election   Personneltoday.com reports on a speech by TUC general secretary Brendan Barber, in which he identified four key priorities for the Government to address: pensions, skills, quality of working life and diversity.

    Warwick and the kingmakers   IRS Employment Review reports from the TUC conference, at which union leaders welcomed the Warwick agreement, covering Labour's commitments on issues from paid holidays to pensions for same-sex partners.

    Pensions will continue to lead union bargaining agenda   Writing in IRS Employment Review, Janet Egan reviews trade unions' negotiating and campaigning priorities for the coming year in selected key sectors of the economy.

    Queen's speech promises progress on corporate manslaughter   Plans for the publication of a draft Bill introducing a new offence of corporate manslaughter are among the measures announced in the Queen's speech.