Employment law brief: 16 April 2015

March was a busy time legislatively, as Parliament cleared the decks prior to the election. Royal Assent was given on 26 March to the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Act 2015, ss 147 to 153 of which cover equal pay transparency, whistleblowing (generally, and in relation to the NHS), financial penalties for failure to pay tribunal awards, a power to tighten the rules on postponements in tribunals, an increase in the financial penalty for failure to pay the national minimum wage and a ban on exclusivity clauses in zero hours contracts. These are to come into force by order, except for s 151 on postponements which came into force on Assent. Also receiving Royal Assent was the Deregulation Act 2015, s 2 of which will remove a tribunal’s power to make wide-ranging recommendations in the event of a successful claim of discrimination. As well as these statutory developments, the addition to the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation)