Active Consultations

Parental leave and pay

This section sets out high level options for reforming existing entitlements which could help parents to balance the gender division of parental leave.

Neonatal leave and pay

This section looks at proposals for a new leave and pay entitlement for parents of babies that require neonatal care after birth.

Transparency of flexible working and family related leave and pay policies

The DHSC are consulting on the prevention green paper ‘Advancing our health: prevention in the 2020s’, which includes new commitments to tackle obesity and alcohol and tobacco related harm. The green paper confirms that a legal age restriction of 16 for energy drinks will be introduced in England and announces the governments ambition for England to go ‘smoke free’ by 2030.

This consultation seeks views on:

• providing a right to reasonable notice of working hours
• providing workers with compensation for shifts cancelled without reasonable notice

It also seeks views on what guidance government can provide to support employers and encourage best practice to be shared across industries.

This consultation considers changes to the minimum age for playing the National Lottery ahead of the competition to run the 4th National Lottery licence.

The government is consulting on 3 options:

• Option 1 - Do nothing, retain the minimum age of 16 for all National Lottery games
• Option 2 - Raise the minimum age to 18 for National Lottery instant win games (i.e. scratchcards and online instant win games)
• Option 3 - Raise the minimum age to 18 for all National Lottery games

This consultation seeks views on different ways in which government and employers can take action to reduce ill health-related job loss. The consultation proposes to provide more low-paid workers with statutory sick pay looking at whether to reduce the threshold for statutory sick pay eligibility, flexibility of phased returns to work, and the possibility of offering small businesses a rebate who help employees return to work

This consultation seeks views on whether establishing a new single enforcement body for employment rights could:

• improve enforcement for vulnerable workers
• create a level playing field for the majority of businesses who are complying with the law

This consultation aims to gather evidence about whether the current laws on protecting people from sexual harassment in the workplace are effective.

This is a public consultation on proposed changes to the Modern Slavery Act 2015, following the independent review of the Modern Slavery Act. The government is gathering views on proposed measures intended to increase transparency and compliance, improve reporting quality and extend the scope of the legislation.

This call for evidence seeks views on how government can support the development and secure use of digital identities fit for the UK’s growing digital economy.

DHSC are conducting a post-implementation review looking at the tobacco legislation introduced between 2010 and 2016. The review considers how effective tobacco legislation has been in:

• discouraging young people from taking up smoking and vaping
• encouraging existing smokers to quit
• protecting others from the harmful effects of cigarette smoke

The legislation introduced during this time includes bans on: