Employment law

The primary legislation in the sphere of individual employment law is the Employment Rights Act 1996. This concerns the law relating to unfair dismissal; redundancy; notice rights; protection of wages; ‘whistle-blowing’; time off work and maternity, adoption and parental leave. Until recently, most of the important protections of employment law were enjoyed by persons employed under a contract of service. This type of contract can be contrasted with a contract for services which, simply stated, is the distinction between the status of an employee and that of a self-employed person. Although there are numerous Acts of Parliament conferring rights on employees, none of them gives an exhaustive definition of a contract of service. One usual formulation is to define an employee as a person who works under a contract of employment.