Christine:  First things first, I will just get my soapbox ready and get onto it here. So the new Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill. I have dropped it into the hand-out section of the webinar. Please do take a look at it. It's a really important piece of legislation, and it kind of got lost in the headlines of tax cuts for the rich and stuff, but it was announced on the same day as the mini budgets.

So what the government are saying is it will enable them to create regulations tailor-made to the UK's own needs, doing away with out-dated and burdensome EU laws, which sounds fantastic, doesn't it? But we need to put that in perspective.

So there's approximately 2,400 pieces of Retained EU legislation in the UK, and each and every one of those will need to have a regulation passed in order for it to be retained. And if we don't have that, they will simply fall away New Year's Eve 2023.

Now, there is another date as well. Ministers can apply for an extension to 23 June 2026. And I want you to drop into the questions box if you know why they picked this date. It is an important date for a reason. So let's see who knows why.

So it has potential, doesn't it, Seamus, to be quite far-reaching? And it's difficult to overstate it how far-reaching it could really be. What's your take on it?

Seamus: Well, I think the word bonfire . . . I think we're finding lots of new words in this webinar, whether it's bonfire of rights, quietly quitting, or even sunsetting legislation. It's all there.

But certainly, a bonfire is a really good way of putting it. And essentially, you're exactly right there, Christine, in the sense that when we get to 31 December 2023, if there are no steps taken either to replace or to retain or restate the existing EU laws that we have, they fall away. And this is where this word sunsetting is coming. The aim is to sunset or expire, if I put it that way, the majority of Retained EU Law.

And where that word Retained EU Law comes from is following on from the regulations and legislation that have been put in place, following on from Brexit, the word that they're using is the EU law that will be retained. So it's always this aspect that there was an intention that we would move away from EU law in the sense that we would be writing our own laws again, and that we would be taking back control of our laws/regulations in our own country.

But it's this aspect of looking to expire or sunset the EU law, and an opportunity within the legislation to retain, replace, or restate the law. So that's where the really scary aspect is, if you're like me and don't like a lot of change.

The bottom line is that all of that goes. That's what the Bill . . . And the Bill itself is the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill, and that's the bill that's been put forward by the Department of Business. And we know, of course, then, that the Minister for Department of Business is Jacob Rees-Mogg, who is somewhat of the . . .

It depends on how you look at these. You could say on the one hand, these are great, if you're on the same footing as the government, that these are brilliant. This might press the economy and really drive matters forward in relation to the economy, and get rid of all this red tape and get rid of all of these rights that hamper business and drives for the economy. These could be very positive things if you sit on that side of the fence.

If you are a trade union or if you're a trade union activist or you're looking at matters from that side, this is devastating. It has the potential to remove all of our current worker rights as we know them, because the majority of those worker rights have come from Europe. So that's where we get that aspect of there being this bonfire.

Just to be clear, all of that legislation will fall away and it will become void unless it is replaced, retained, or restate. And the appropriate way that that is going to be done is through a minister, and a minister has the right for their department to look at the legislation.

So there will be decisions made as to whether or not certain legislation is just going to be binned and that's the end of it, or whether there's an opportunity to revise legislation.

There are some positives with that in the sense that all of the legislation has good and bad parts. And there is an element to maybe simplify and streamline, make some of the legislation more understandable and workable from an employer's perspective, or there could be just a rubber-stamping of, "No, we're retaining this completely and we're restating the legal position on it".

I suppose one of the other things is what you've mentioned there, that there is a . . . There are a lot of podcasts, there's a lot of media interest, and there are lots of articles in relation to all of this. One of the things that has come out of that is that there is the potential under this that it won't just be the legislation that will be sunsetted. Probably not a word at all in the English language, sunsetted, but there we go. But it's also the old domestic case law.

And what has been said is that old domestic case law could now take precedence over case law that is developed during EU law, and that there could be a setting aside or a sunsetting done in relation to that, specifically in relation to that case law.

And our old case law before we had our developed case law, that could take precedent in our courts, in our tribunals when it comes to dealing with employment rights. So massive potential of complete changes all around and all over the show.

And I think you'd mentioned there that we do have this aspect of 31 December 2023. You can extend out to 2026, but whether ministers will take the opportunity to do that or not will probably depend.

And if you think back to most times whenever we're introducing legislation, there's a consultation period that takes place. You get an opportunity to give and share your comments. Business and industry get opportunities to do that also. But we're going to be relying solely on a minister to decide what is going to happen in relation to this retained legislation.

And then you do think about awkwardly what happens in Northern Ireland. What happens to our ministers? Are we going to have ministers? I know that we have ministers at the minute. We don't have a government in place, but the ministers have retained their positions to date.

What is that going to look like when we get to December 2023, and how are we going to get an opportunity in terms of . . . I mean, if there is going to be this bonfire of rights, it's really important that the conversations start to take place now. And if this bill goes through, there's a massive amount of work that needs to be done in a very short period of time. We're coming up a lot on 13 months.

Christine: Yeah. I think whenever I heard it coming out in the press that this bill was coming, I kind of raised my eyebrows, but I don't think I quite grasped the enormity of it.

And we've got quite a few people who got the correct answer. 23 June 2026 will be the 10th anniversary of the Vote Leave. So that's why they've picked that as their date.

Getting a few questions in as well. How impactful will this be in Northern Ireland given that a lot of our legislation is through statutory order rather than acts of parliament?

I think first thing to note is acts of parliament won't be affected by this. So it's not like the English and Welsh Equality Act will just be torn up and binned. It cannot be binned because it is domestic legislation. It was not EU-derived.

I mean, I think it's a tricky question, Seamus. How will it work for Northern Ireland?

Seamus: I mean, it's hugely difficult, and to an extent you're putting your finger up in the air. But I suspect that if it is a position where ministers can make decisions, and if we have ministers in place, that can be taken at a local level in relation to the applicable legislation that we can work with. Otherwise, we might be left with ministers making decisions for us on wider legislation in England.

The other aspect of it then is precisely how will that look? Who will be making those decisions? Who will be in the roles of ministers at that time? Will we have ministers here to do that?

Interestingly, in one of those pieces that I looked at, they were talking about amendments being made the legislation by way of statutory instrument. And in Westminster, there hasn't been a challenge to a statutory instrument from 1979. These are not processes whereby you get a huge amount of debate or there's an opportunity even for huge discussion in and around them.

They're usually brought through parliament and they're done very quickly and they're done without huge stepping stones having to be taken. The fact that there hasn't been a challenge to one from 1979 is a real concern, I think.

If you're coming at this from an employment lawyer aspect, it is scary because what's the law going to be whenever we get to the end of 2023?

If you're coming at it from a trade union perspective, this is really, really worrying. There's the potential here of a loss of substantial worker's rights that have been drawn together over a significant period of time, rights that we've all got used to and that are now our expectations.

But maybe if we just looked at where some of those . . . I mean, we looked at the poll in relation to some of the aspects of the Working Time Regulations and TUPE, the part-time workers, holiday pay, a significant issue, and equal pay for women and men.

Just some of the other things that have been sort of touted and maybe what might be looked at would be a relaxation around TUPE, the informing and consulting with employees and the ban that you have then, sort of looking at the assimilation of terms and conditions post-TUPE happening and whether there might be an opportunity to relax.

So some of the criticisms that we have around current legislation, there's an opportunity to maybe make those a bit better and improve those. There are also issues around collective redundancies, holiday entitlement, the 48-hour working week, and there's commentary on that about does anybody stick to it in any event.

A really interesting one that was around 10 years ago, I think. There was a proposal in and around the discrimination cap and whether or not there should be a cap applied to discrimination cases in the same way that we have them for our unfair dismissal cases. So there's been a bit of talk about that being resurrected as well.

But the bottom line is, as employers and as HR practitioners that are listening in today, you need to be prepared that as it goes at the minute, there's going to be huge changes come 31 December 2023. That date needs to be in the diary. You need to be keeping on top of the developments.

It gives us plenty of fodder going forward, Christine, in terms of our webinar. We're going to have lots of potential changes and lots of discussions maybe to highlight and bring those forward so that people become aware of them. But it is huge, and it has huge potential.

And then there's the whole aspect of even the most recent changes that we've had there, there's been a pullback in relation to the reversal of IR35. Employers have spent a lot of money and invested a lot of money to make sure that they're compliant with legislation, and all of a sudden, in a very short period of time, we're told that no longer applies.

Same with the income tax cuts that have been introduced. We all saw that at the start of the week and how quickly government changed its position and how the Chancellor changed his position in relation to the tax issues. But there has been this reversal of the increase in National Insurance, which came into effect in April 2022. That 1.25% has been reversed.

And I know lots of my clients were really worried about that at the time. They were worried about this cost of living crisis that was starting to ensue, and they took steps to increase salaries in their places of work so that the employees weren't really badly affected by that increase.

Now that that's been wiped away, you've now got the employer left holding the can and the bill for the increases that were made at the time, which were done genuinely and in good faith to help employees. But employers now can't simply go back and say, "Right. Now that that's changed, I'm going to change your terms and conditions", because we know that you can't unilaterally amend terms and conditions.

And Rolanda made a really good point there as well just before we came on, that any of those contractual changes that have been made by employers, where does that then leave the contract versus maybe changes being made in legislation, and those amendments that have been made to contracts to assist employees versus this rollback that might take place in relation to rights?

So it really is going to be a difficult period of time, I think, that we're envisaging, and it's certainly an interesting one from an employment aspect.

The other thing that slightly concerns me is that you have so many EU laws. What happens if one is missed and automatically falls through the gap, that there isn't an extension put on? It seems to me that that's entirely possible. That could happen.

Christine: Yeah. You won't know what you've got until it's gone type thing going on there. It's fallen off the list and nobody deems to mention it in parliament.

I was listening to Daniel Barnett, who's an employment law guru in London. He's extremely good if you want to give him a follow. But he kind of outlined seven different areas that he thinks are going to be problematic.

So we've got TUPE, the Working Time regs, part-time workers, fixed-term workers, agency workers, GDPR, which we've already been told this week at the Tory party conference is going, and then Privacy Regulations 2003, which relates to employee monitoring in the workplace, which we've all got used to talking about. We've had webinars on this. When is it appropriate? When is it not appropriate? And this is where all these rules come from.

I mean, with the GDPR, what we're looking at is it happened . . . I remember it happening and everybody having to run about like headless chickens to be compliant with GDPR coming in, but they're going to change that. We're going to have a company trading in Newry who wants to do a bit of business up the road with their neighbours in the Republic of Ireland, and they're going to have to comply with GDPR to trade in Europe. And then they're going to have to get the grips within a new system for the UK. So again, this is more money going out the window, isn't it?

Seamus: Yeah. I mean, that's the costs of it, and there's an element maybe that it hasn't all been thought through the way that it should be. But the fear is that it's such a close timeframe and then the preparations for all of that. So I would imagine that in and around those very tricky issues, they might use the extension, and they might move that out and provide for 2026.

But there might be an awful lot of work to do and there might be an awful lot of money that is needed in order to bring things into line with changes, and then working with neighbours, whether it be in Europe or if there are different amendments that are made in Scotland in comparison to here in Northern Ireland as well.

I mean, we really are going to have to stick to our jurisdiction in terms of our expertise, I would imagine, as well, and make sure that we're not just assuming that the law is going to be the same across the country, because it's likely not to be. Yeah, it's just this aspect that it's the unknown at the minute. It's the change.

One thing I suppose that might be helpful is that there was a further article later towards the end of this week, I think maybe just on Wednesday, where it said that despite Jacob Rees-Mogg's proposals that were made . . . And I know that there were even elements that were difficult for him during the conference during the week when he might have just been asked to stop.

But he seems to have very wide-ranging proposals, and there was a recent article there I think coming from the "Financial Times" that said that Liz Truss wasn't in favour of a bonfire of rights, that it wasn't going to be as bad as what maybe had been forecasted or what Mr Rees-Mogg's might want, that that's not necessarily what we'll get. But again, it's just that aspect of . . . it's the element of surprise and what will happen.

Christine:  Yeah, we can only hope. I mean, I think there are certain EU-derived laws that the UK has gold-plated essentially. So you talk about your family rights, and commentators in the employment law sphere are . . . Of course, it's speculation, we can only guess, but it seems unlikely that we're going to get no maternity and paternity and all of that. That's not going to go. I think we can rest and sleep easy on that one.

I think what the commentators are saying we may see changes around is holiday pay. Now, employment law geeks across Northern Ireland, myself included, are very excited that Agnew has been relisted for December. I was thinking, "Are we going to get an answer on this?" Hopefully, we get a really detailed judgement, all the stuff we've been hoping for.

But holiday pay has been a bugbear. It's overly complex. It is a bit of a nightmare to try to wade through, but they're talking about potentially holiday pay going back to the position it was, where it would just be your basic pay, which seems unusual to me in a financial crisis and a work . . . People are struggling to get employees, so that would seem odd to me. It's kind of dissuading people from taking holidays, dissuading people from working overtime.

It's an unusual one, but it is one being talked about, isn't it, Seamus?

Seamus: Yeah. It's this phrase around graft and employees having to graft again. And it seems to me that there certainly is a view that things have just got a bit too comfortable and everybody's a bit too cushy at the minute, and that's not serving well for the economy and things need to change. And maybe we're looking back at the sort of Thatcherite days and that more hard-line-taking. That seems to me where things are being pushed back to.

I think in and around that holiday pay aspect, it would be such a frustrating point if we got some clarity from the Supreme Court. And even if Agnew was heard in December and we managed to get a decision within a couple of months of that, you could end up then back in a position in December, just a number of months after that again, where everything changes again.

And we know that the position for holidays is not the same in Northern Ireland at the minute as what it is across the water. So it'll be interesting to see what develops.

But I think definitely what you're looking at is whatever way that you paint it as, there's the potential certainly for there to be substantial reduction in employee and worker rights.

And when you think about all our developments and our recent case law, all of those things that we've discussed in our webinars over the last number of years, there's the potential that that all just could be simply rolled back. Time will tell if that happens and whether it's a good thing or a bad thing or not, but it's just really to get the message out there that this is such a huge ramification.

Christine: Yeah. And I would really encourage you to all actually read the bill because it's laid out in black and white what they intend to do. I'm not saying whether I agree or disagree with it, but I will certainly be making a bit of noise about it if it does go through in its current form.

But I think, Seamus, you brought us quite nicely into our quiet quitting topic about saying how we all had it too cushy for too long, and is this why the economy is the way it is?