Jeremy Corbyn pledges to help women and the self-employed

A new Labour Government would give statutory sick pay, maternity pay and paternity pay to the self-employed, according to the newly elected labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn.

The move has been subjected to scrutiny by some commentators, given that some people choose to work on a self-employed basis to take advantage of certain tax reliefs and any benefits they receive would have to be paid out of taxpayers’ money.

Jeremy Corbyn has also pledged a number of new measures to help women in the workplace, including:

• Abolishing Employment Tribunal fees and giving women longer to bring a claim for discrimination. This is intended to make it easier for women to pursue a claim for discrimination against unscrupulous employers;
• Introducing a mandatory requirement for all companies to publish an equal pay audit. Corbyn hopes that this will help gender pay disparity. The Government is currently proposing to bring in equal pay reporting for employers with more than 250 employees, but Corbyn’s proposals go much further by extending this obligation to all employers; and
• Changing legislation relating to unfair dismissal so that all employees can claim unfair dismissal from day one of employment. Employees currently have to work for two years to claim unfair dismissal, so this would amount to a significant change and would have serious implications for employers.