Queen’s Speech December 2019: Key points for payroll professionals
19 December 2019
As a result of the Conservative party being re-elected last week, the Queen delivered a speech on 19 December 2019 that sets out the government’s policies and proposed legislative programme for the new parliamentary session. The speech was not significantly different from the one delivered in October but the CIPP has selected some of the key points from the background briefing notes that may be of particular interest to payroll professionals.
The four key areas of interest for payrollers would be proposals covered in the Employment Bill, the Pension Schemes Bill, the section of the document that discusses the cost of living and English devolution.
The Employment Bill will ‘protect and enhance workers’ rights as the UK leaves the EU.’ There is a focus on encouraging fairness in the workplace along with the promotion of flexible working and in strengthening workers’ ability to get redress for poor treatment by creating a new, singular enforcement body. This builds on the work of Matthew Taylor and the Good Work Plan. There will be better support in place for working families and additional measures to protect those in low-paid work.
The Pension Schemes Bill aims to ‘support pension saving in the 21st century, putting protection of people’s pensions at its heart.’ A framework will be established for the implementation of pension dashboards so that people can better predict what income they can expect to receive in later life. The Bill also proposes that The Pensions Regulator (TPR) will have greater powers to tackle and combat non-compliance with legislation around auto-enrolment and pension duties.
Within the briefing notes, there is much discussion relating to English devolution. This means that the different regions across England will choose how to allocate how the investment is spent, as the priorities of one nation may drastically differ from those of another.
The Chancellor, Sajid Javid has pledged that the National Living Wage will increase to an expected £10.50 an hour by 2024 and will be available to those aged 21 and over within five years. The government has stated that they will raise the National Insurance threshold to £9,500 next year, and they will establish a £1 billion fund to help towards high quality, affordable childcare.
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