THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY
Welcome to Part 2 in our series of blogs summarising each political party’s pledges on matters effecting employment.
Today we are looking at the Conservative Manifesto.
Set out from page 37, the Conservatives’ key pledges are:
- Create a new National Skills Fund worth £3 billion over the next Parliament (the fund is stated to provide matching funding for individuals and SMEs for high-quality education and training as well as investment in strategic investment in skills)
- Create a single enforcement body to ‘crack-down’ on employers’ abuse of their staff (examples given are employers who take workers tips or refuse them sick pay)
- Ensure that workers have the right to request a more predictable contract and other reasonable protections (no further details provided)
- Look at more radical ways to support working families in the UK (no further details provided)
- Encourage flexible working and consult on making it the default unless employers have good reasons not to
- Legislate to allow parents to take extended leave for neonatal care
- Look at ways to make it easier for fathers to take paternity leave (no further details provided)
- Extend the entitlement to leave for unpaid carers to a week
- Fund more childcare before and after school and during the holidays
- Require that a minimum service operates during transport strikes (no further details provided).
Elsewhere in their manifesto, the Conservatives make the following pledges relating to employment tax:
- Promise not to raise the rates of income tax and National Insurance over the next Parliament
- Cut taxes by raising the National Insurance threshold to £9,500 next year
To speak to one of our experts on how these proposed changes could affect your business click here.
Look out for our other blogs in this series which will detail employment law pledges from the Labour Party, the Liberal Democrats, the Green Party and the Brexit Party.