The Conservative Governments’ Record on Employment: Policies, Spending and Outcomes, May 2015 to pre-COVID

In relation to pay the party pledged real terms increases in the National Minimum Wage over the next parliament, accepting the recommendations of the Low Pay Commission to increase the National Minimum Wage to £6.60 by the autumn of 2015 and to £8 by the end of the decade, as well as encouraging businesses and organisations to pay the real Living Wage (set by the Living Wage Foundation) ‘whenever. [...] In relation to the workplace setting, the White Paper endorses recommendations made in the Stevenson/Farmer Review of mental health and outlines actions taken since the publication of the Green Paper in relation to disability and employment. [...] In February 2018 the government published its response to the review, accepting some of the recommendations and committing to consultations in relation to a number of the issues raised including the legal framework underpinning employment rights in Great Britain (see pages 68-75 for the government response to each of the 53 recommendations that were made). [...] At the time of Stewart, Cooper and Shutes’s analysis the UK had entered the transition period to leaving the EU with the final agreement on the relationship between the UK and the EU once the transition period ends on 31st December 2020, signed on 24th January 2020. [...] The Work and Health Programme In contrast to the Work Programme, the largest group of participants in the Work and Health Programme is people with disabilities (defined according to the Equality Act 2010), reflecting the aims of the programme (DWP, 2020).