Evolution of UK Employment Laws and Essential Elements of Contract Law

Business Law and
Ethics

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................2
MAIN BODY ..................................................................................................................................2
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6
INTRODUCTION
Business law is a body which governs the transactions and conduct of the commercial
matters which is mainly done in two ways which is regulation of commercial transactions and
regulations of commercial entities. There lies number of types to it such as Contract law,
Company law, Employment laws, etc. Moreover, the application of ethical values in the business
is defined as the business ethics. This concept stands applicable to both the conduct of the
company as well as to its individuals. The said essay is going to elaborate the evolution of the
employment laws of the UK from the year 1970s(Adams and Prassl, 2018). Also it specifies the
essential ingredients which are require for the constitution of the law of contract.
MAIN BODY
1. with respect to the country of United Kingdom, the employment laws has seen a lot of
ups and down since their inception. But majorly with respect to the 1970s, the said laws
have evolved a lot. This evolution began with the Equal pay Act of 1970, which later
came in force in 1975. this legislation specified that both men and women are required to
be paid the same pay for the same job. Also in this very year the concept of compensation
for unfair dismissal was also introduced. In the year 1974, the Trade union and Labour
Relations Act was introduced stating the rules and regulation on the legal status and

functioning of the trade unions(Durovic and Janssen, 2019). Other than this in the year of
1975, two other piece of legislations were enacted which are the Sex discrimination Act
and the Employment protection Act, which majorly states the provisions with respect to
the unlawful dismissal of women on the grounds of maternity leave or pregnancy. The
amendment Act of Equal pay, later it was made to ensure that the woman's in the society
are paid as same top that of the men for the equal amount of work. Also the concept of
independent taxation mainly with respect to the women's was introduced where, the
married women are subjected to the separate taxes from her husband. Later with the
enactment of the Disability Discrimination Act of the 1995, the protection was provided
to the disabled people with respect to both, the opportunities of the employment and the
access of the available services. Later in year 1996, the Employment Rights Act,
codified the prevailing laws mainly in context with the individual employment rights.
The major changes with respect to the working hours was made with the introduction of
the Working Time Regulations Act of 1998, where it tried to draw a limit on the
excessive long working hours in the company and also initiate the provision of
compulsory twenty days paid holidays per year to every individual who is working in the
capacity of an employee or worker(Hodson, Townley and Earp, 2019). Further, the
National Minimum Wage Act of 1998, presented the policy of national minimum wage
of an individual, initially which was £3.60 per hour for over 21s . Moreover, later in the
year of 1999 two major legislation were enacted which brought some major changes
which are the Maternity and parental leave Regulations, in which the provision was
granted with respect to the total leave of 52 weeks to every women for the purpose of
maternity. The other being the Sex discrimination Act( gender reassignment), where
the discrimination of the individual being a transgender was made illegal and also is
subjected to certain liabilities. In year 2000 to 2002, the legislations were also made with
respect to the regulations of the part time workers and the fixed time workers where the
employees were given the equal status as compared to that of the permanent employees.
The Employment Act of 2003, laid down the provisions regarding the rights of the
parents to work in a more flexible manner, mainly with respect to them who have the
children of disabled or young category. The acts were also made in order to ensure the
protection of the employees on the grounds of different beliefs or religion. Also, the