Member Article

How does leaving the EU affect your business? 

Referendum results reveal we have voted to leave the EU. How will this affect your business?

You are likely to have many questions about how the result of this referendum could affect you and your staff members. A lot of the UK’s current Employment Law comes from the EU, however just because we have voted to leave the EU our Laws will not change automatically or even quickly for that matter.

A lot of our Employment Law was actually in place before we joined the EU, with Unfair Dismissal in 1972 and race discrimination from 1965. Some of our Employment Law already goes further than EU law, for example holiday is only set at 4 week’s paid holiday where as we allow 5.6 weeks.

There are a few employment laws that may be changed after our leave vote. The most likely of these are Agency Workers Regulations as these are largely unpopular and potentially some of the regulation around TUPE to make them less complex.

Of course there are laws that will be unaffected by the referendum decision, such as statutory pay rates, unlawful deductions from pay and as mentioned before, unfair dismissal.

Do not panic! These complex Laws won’t automatically be repealed, UK courts and tribunals are already bound by those decisions made by the European court of justice and will continue to be until a UK court has reason to depart from them, or an act of Parliament amends them. We will keep you legal when any changes to employment law happen.

We have been getting many questions about the employment of foreign workers should we leave, but don’t worry at the moment. There are likely to be major changes but they won’t happen immediately and we will keep you informed and, as ever, up to date and legal.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Jayne Hart .