Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • Brightmine
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Free trial
    • Request a quote
  • Webinars
  • Advertise
  • OHW+

Personnel Today

Register
Log in
Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • Brightmine
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Free trial
    • Request a quote
  • Webinars
  • Advertise
  • OHW+

BrexitEuropeFinancial servicesLatest NewsEconomics, government & business

Brexit deal puts workers’ rights at risk, warns analysis

by Adam McCulloch 4 Jan 2021
by Adam McCulloch 4 Jan 2021 David Frost, Boris Johnson, Ursula von der Leyen and Michel Barnier at the Brexit talks in December.
unreguser/Xinhua News Agency/PA Images
David Frost, Boris Johnson, Ursula von der Leyen and Michel Barnier at the Brexit talks in December.
unreguser/Xinhua News Agency/PA Images

The Brexit deal agreed between the UK government and European Union over Christmas ‘leaves workers’ rights and environmental protections at serious risk of erosion’ because rules for safeguarding the agreed level playing field for businesses between UK and EU businesses will be difficult to enforce.

A report by the IPPR thinktank, published last week, said that the bar for proof of breaches of the level playing field were too high to be consistently enforceable and left current standards vulnerable.

Author of the report, EU relations expert at the IPPR Marley Morris, warned that the commitment in the deal not to decrease current standards in a bid to gain an unfair competitive advantage was “considerably weaker than expected” and set “a very high bar for proof”.

How will Brexit affect recruitment and services?

Brexit: how will it affect services firms with European interests?

Employers face quandaries over taking on workers from EU

How will employers fare under the new immigration system?

Chinese IT specialists top visa approval ratios

“Given it is notoriously difficult to prove that any lowering of protections affects trade or investment, the deal is unlikely to prevent the UK government from weakening EU-derived labour and environmental policies if it so chooses,” the report stated. Morris said: “This leaves protections for workers, climate and the environment at serious risk of being eroded.”

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has insisted that the UK will not reduce workers’ rights and said he was keen to use the “legislative and regulatory freedoms to deliver for people who felt left behind”.

The level playing field commitments apply to policy areas such as labour and social rights, state aid, taxation and environmental protections. On labour rights and environmental standards the EU and UK will sign up to non-regression clauses designed to prevent either party from weakening protections. According to the IPPR the commitments do allow for divergence and do not require the UK to update labour legislation in line with EU developments.

Morris wrote that “the governance arrangements are much weaker than the status quo: the non-regression clauses are enforced primarily at the domestic level”. He added that formal arbitration proceedings were state-to-state procedures that tended to be ineffective in fully protecting rights.

The IPPR predicted that by the UK having “watered down” the level playing field requirements to secure “only limited benefits in market access” there would be a blow to trade. These would “likely lead to slower growth and a more prolonged economic recovery” from the coronavirus pandemic, the analysis says.

However, despite the negative economic impact the “thin deal” was considered by the IPPR to be better than no deal at all.

Since the deal was signed Johnson has denied the UK would regress on workers’ rights telling the Sunday Telegraph: “The UK won’t immediately send children up chimneys or pour raw sewage all over its beaches. We’re not going to regress, and you’d expect that.”

The Prime Minister did, however, acknowledge that the treaty “perhaps does not go as far as we would like” over access to EU markets for financial and other professional services.

This was picked up on by former Prime Minister Theresa May last week during the parliamentary debate on the deal. She told MPs that her failed deal was “a better deal” than Boris Johnson’s and said she was disappointed his trade agreement did not have a wide-ranging services agreement. She said not getting a post-Brexit financial services agreement was a massive blow to the UK economy.

UK firms would have to negotiate a patchwork of individual EU nations’ regulations, she said.

It has also forced major UK-based banks to move assets and jobs to EU financial capitals to avoid disruption.

May said: “We have a deal in trade which benefits the EU, but not a deal in services that would have benefited the UK.

“The arrangement treaty is clear that future negotiation on these points is possible and I hope the government will go to the negotiations with alacrity and vigour, particularly on financial services.”

Sign up to our weekly round-up of HR news and guidance

Receive the Personnel Today Direct e-newsletter every Wednesday

OptOut
This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

It is widely recognised that the only way the UK financial services industry could maintain its current EU access would be if Brussels were to grant regulatory equivalence.

HR Director opportunities on Personnel Today

Browse more HR director jobs

Adam McCulloch

Adam McCulloch first worked for Personnel Today magazine in the early 1990s as a sub editor. He rejoined Personnel Today as a writer in 2017, covering all aspects of HR but with a special interest in diversity, social mobility and industrial relations. He has ventured beyond the HR realm to work as a freelance writer and production editor in sectors including travel (The Guardian), aviation (Flight International), agriculture (Farmers' Weekly), music (Jazzwise), theatre (The Stage) and social work (Community Care). He is also the author of KentWalksNearLondon. Adam first became interested in industrial relations after witnessing an exchange between Arthur Scargill and National Coal Board chairman Ian McGregor in 1984, while working as a temp in facilities at the NCB, carrying extra chairs into a conference room!

previous post
HR news you may have missed over Christmas
next post
OH’s role in Covid vaccine delivery highlighted by SOM and Tony Blair

You may also like

UK and EU agree to collaborate on ‘youth...

19 May 2025

Labour MPs urge more flexibility with EU over...

24 Apr 2025

Trump’s tariffs to hit growth and jobs, warn...

3 Apr 2025

Youth mobility scheme on the table for Starmer...

21 Feb 2025

Sharp decline in net migration as fewer dependants...

28 Nov 2024

Qualified support for Reeves after Mansion House speech

15 Nov 2024

Why ministers must restore the EU youth mobility...

21 Oct 2024

Barriers to workers getting qualifications recognised in EU

2 Jul 2024

SNP manifesto: NHS investment and rejoining the EU

19 Jun 2024

Seasonal farm worker brings tribunal case over unpaid...

24 May 2024

  • 2025 Employee Communications Report PROMOTED | HR and leadership...Read more
  • The Majority of Employees Have Their Eyes on Their Next Move PROMOTED | A staggering 65%...Read more
  • Prioritising performance management: Strategies for success (webinar) WEBINAR | In today’s fast-paced...Read more
  • Self-Leadership: The Key to Successful Organisations PROMOTED | Eletive is helping businesses...Read more
  • Retaining Female Talent: Four Ways to Reduce Workplace Drop Out PROMOTED | International Women’s Day...Read more

Personnel Today Jobs
 

Search Jobs

PERSONNEL TODAY

About us
Contact us
Browse all HR topics
Email newsletters
Content feeds
Cookies policy
Privacy policy
Terms and conditions

JOBS

Personnel Today Jobs
Post a job
Why advertise with us?

EVENTS & PRODUCTS

The Personnel Today Awards
The RAD Awards
Employee Benefits
Forum for Expatriate Management
OHW+
Whatmedia

ADVERTISING & PR

Advertising opportunities
Features list 2025

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Linkedin


© 2011 - 2025 DVV Media International Ltd

Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • Brightmine
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Free trial
    • Request a quote
  • Webinars
  • Advertise
  • OHW+