Overview of the Structure of the Act
4.The Act is in six Parts with twenty-two Schedules.
Part 1
Ensures that the UK Green Investment Bank plc engages only in activities that contribute to achieving one or more of the statutory ‘green purposes’ and that its investment activities would, taken as a whole, be likely to contribute to a reduction of global greenhouse gas emissions. It also requires the Secretary of State to provide an undertaking to the UK Green Investment Bank plc in order to facilitate its operational independence.
Part 2 including Schedules 1-3
Makes changes to the employment tribunal process, including providing for prospective claimants to contact the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service before they can begin certain types of employment tribunal proceedings, so that parties can be offered conciliation to attempt to resolve their dispute outside the tribunal system, and introduces a series of reforms to streamline the existing system and encourage greater employer compliance with employment obligations, including a new discretionary power for an employment tribunal to impose a financial penalty on an employer found to have breached an individual’s rights. It also introduces a provision to make the offer of a settlement agreement inadmissible in evidence in an unfair dismissal claim, to give employers greater confidence to use settlement agreements as a means of resolving a dispute, and provides power for the Secretary of State to change the limit on compensatory awards for unfair dismissal claims. There is also an increase in protections available for whistleblowers.
Part 3 including Schedules 4-6
Establishes the Competition and Markets Authority to form the UK’s primary competition authority, provides for the transfer to it of the competition functions of the Office of Fair Trading and the Competition Commission and paves the way for the transfer of consumer enforcement functions.
Part 4 including 5 Chapters and Schedules 7-15
Reforms the competition functions of the Competition and Markets Authority to improve the speed, quality and robustness of its decision making. The principal competition functions reformed by these provisions are market studies and investigations, merger control, enforcement of the anti-trust prohibitions, prosecution of the criminal cartel offence and operation of sector regulators’ concurrent competition powers.
Part 5 including Schedules 16-21
Makes provisions to include sunset or review provisions in any secondary legislation.
Amends provisions of the National Heritage Act 1983, the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, and the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 to abolish Conservation Area Consent and improve the operation of the listed building consent regime. Makes provision for heritage partnership agreements and orders granting listed building consent, including procedural requirements; makes provision for certificates of lawfulness of proposed works to listed buildings; amends the Osborne Estate Act 1902 to remove the existing obligation to use parts of Osborne House and grounds for the benefit of the armed forces and civil service and repeals the Osborne Estate Act 1914.
Amends Part 1 of the Equality Act 2006, to clarify the remit of the Commission for Equality and Human Rights. Removes measures (third party harassment, and obtaining information) from the Equality Act 2010 which are considered to impose an unnecessary burden on business.
Amends provisions contained in Part 2 of the Regulatory Enforcement and Sanctions Act 2008 to extend eligibility for the Primary Authority Scheme and strengthen inspection plans. Repeals unnecessary legislation to reduce burden on business.
Amends the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 to remove the right of civil action against employers and other duty-holders for breach of statutory duty in relation to certain health and safety legislation, other than where such a right is specifically provided for.
Extends an exemption to the definition within the Estate Agents Act 1979 of ‘estate agency work’, which determines the application of the Estate Agents Act 1979.
Abolishes the Agricultural Wages Board for England and Wales, the fifteen Agricultural Wages Committees and sixteen Agricultural Dwelling House Advisory Committees in England and makes amendments to the National Minimum Wage Act 1998 to bring agricultural workers within the scope of that Act.
Amends the Insolvency Act 1986 so as to reform the debtor bankruptcy petition procedure for obtaining a bankruptcy order under that Act by transferring the procedure from the civil court system to a new administrative system. The intention is to free up court resources to deal with matters which do require judicial input and to improve the accessibility of bankruptcy for debtors.
Part 6 including Schedule 22
Repeals section 52 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 so as to provide full copyright protection, for artistic works from which mass-produced articles are copied, for the period of the author’s life plus 70 years. Creates a power to amend exceptions for copyright and rights in performances without affecting the existing criminal penalties regime.
Amends section 170 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to give the Secretary of State the power to reduce the duration of copyright in works already existing when provisions of the 1988 Act came into force and which are unpublished, other than photographs or films.
Makes a series of amendments to the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to allow (through regulations) for the introduction of systems for the licensing of “orphan works”, and the authorisation of voluntary extended collective licensing schemes. This part also inserts a new Schedule into the Act which confers power on the Secretary of State to require a licensing body to adopt a code of practice under certain circumstances, and which makes provision regarding licensing of performers’ rights.
Makes provision for the implementation of EU Directive 2011/77/EU under the European Communities Act 1972, whilst retaining the current levels of penalty for infringement of copyright.
Introduces a shareholder resolution on a company’s directors’ remuneration policy and requires that any remuneration payments and payments for loss of office are consistent with this policy, or else separately approved by shareholders. The sections make changes to Part 10 and Part 15 of the Companies Act 2006. As is the case with the existing measures on directors’ remuneration, the sections will apply to all ‘quoted companies’, as defined in section 385 of the CA 2006.
Introduces powers that enable the Secretary of State to make an order requiring letting agents in the private rented sector and property managing agents in that sector and in the residential leasehold sector to belong to an approved or government-administered redress scheme. Introduces powers for the Secretary of State to prescribe the procedures to be followed, and conditions to be satisfied, in approving or establishing such schemes and to provide sanctions for non-compliance with any requirement to belong to an approved redress scheme.
Introduces a power for the Secretary of State to make regulations to require regulated persons to supply to their customers, on request, their transaction data held in electronic form, and provides for the enforcement regime in the case of non-compliance.
Introduces a power for the Secretary of State to amend the Insolvency Act 1986 to prevent essential suppliers in the IT and utility sectors from relying on insolvency termination clauses and withdrawing supplies from insolvent businesses, subject to appropriate safeguards.
Introduces a requirement by which a Royal Charter for a body which has functions relating to the carrying on of an industry, established after the 1st March 2013, cannot be amended, where those arrangements require the approval of Parliament, without having met the arrangements set out in order to do this in the Charter.
Amends section 9(5) of the Equality Act 2010 so as to place a duty on a Minister of the Crown to make an order which includes “caste” within the definition of “race” in section 9 of that Act.
Introduces a power into the Equality Act 2010 to enable a Minister of the Crown to make regulations to require employment tribunals to order an employer to carry out an equal pay audit when they have breached equal pay law or have discriminated against women, or men, in non-contractual pay.
5.The Annex to these notes contains a glossary of terms used in the Act and the explanatory notes.
