The Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) has published a letter from the Minister for Small Business, Consumers & Labour Markets, Paul Scully MP, relating to exclusivity clauses in employment contracts. The letter sets out the government’s latest steps to better protect and support low-income workers as we look to build a high skilled, high productivity, high wage economy.
The letter refers to legislation, already laid before parliament, which will widen the ban on exclusivity clauses, ensuring lowest paid workers have the freedom to boost their income through extra work if they wish. This will widen the ban on exclusivity clauses which restrict staff from working with multiple employers, to those whose income is below or equivalent to the Lower Earnings Limit at £123 a week. In addition to supporting workers to increase their income, the reforms will also benefit businesses by widening the talent pool of job applicants to those who may have been prevented from applying for roles due to an exclusivity clause with another employer, and also helps businesses to fill vacancies in key sectors like retail and hospitality.
These reforms follow the consultation on extending exclusivity clause ban to low-income workers launched by the government in December 2020, where the majority of responses agreed with the approach to extend the ban to contracts where the workers’ guaranteed weekly income is below or equivalent to the Lower Earnings Limit (£123 a week).
The draft legislation referred to is the Exclusivity Terms for Zero Hours Workers (Unenforceability and Redress) Regulations 2022.
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