Next (Final?) Stages for the Employment Equality (Repeal of Retirement Age Provisions) Regulations 2011

As widely predicted, a revised version of the Employment Equality (Repeal of Retirement Age Provisions) Regulations 2011 was laid before Parliament yesterday (see appendix).

A copy of the draft SI is likely to be available on Legislation.gov.uk in the coming days; in the meantime, we have a copy available.

As a Statutory Instrument (SI) subject to Affirmative Resolution, this paper will now go to the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments (JCSI), which reports to both Houses of Parliament on the legality and technical aspects of instruments.

The typical timetable for Affirmative Instruments is normally for these to be considered at a Wednesday Committee meeting no earlier than two weeks after it has been laid before Parliament. That would allow the Employment Equality Regulations to be considered on 16^th March, although no date for consideration has been published yet.

A report is then published by the Joint Committee; previous reports can be found on their Parliament.uk pages.

Trusting Burt when his analysis declared “Emergency over. Everything is (basically) fine. Move along now“, the Instrument should not be reported, following which it will then go before both Houses where it is normally passed (Parliament cannot amend an SI, only approve or reject (in Parliamentary parlance, “be not approved”); as the last time an SI subject to Affirmative Resolution was rejected was apparently 1969, (although no-one can be certain) it could be safely assumed that if it clears the JCSI without being reported to BIS, it will indeed move along now) following which a motion will be moved, in this instance by Vince Cable, for formal approval.

If our assumptions are correct on when this SI will be considered, Mr Cable should have three weeks within which time to move his motion… perhaps a lot more time than employers will have to actually give notice of retirement to their staff once these Regulations become law, so if you are an employer with thoughts of retirement for your staff, the time to act is now – don’t wait for these Regulations to become law! If you need advice or assistance in this matter (or any employment law matters), contact Employment Law Clinic or check out the Twitter #ukemplaw feed for lots of very knowledgeable people on this subject.

Finally, my thanks to the staff at the JCSI for very kindly calling ELC yesterday to help clarify the legal timetable for this SI.

Filed under: Discrimination, General News, Laws & Regulations by Employment Law Clinic           Post created on: March 2nd, 2011