Create a right to switch off: calculation note

Central fiscal result

+£0.3bn - Net public-finance impact in 2027-28

Low case: +£0.0bn. High case: +£1.5bn. Positive numbers are fiscal costs or borrowing pressure. Negative numbers are Exchequer savings or receipts.

Scenario and baseline

• Protect workers from routine work contact outside contracted hours, with employer duty guidance.
• Baseline is current law and published official data unless stated.
• Private business costs are excluded unless they affect tax or procurement.
• Target year is 2027-28, with later years shown separately.

Affected population

• Unit is employees and employers.
• No official affected-count estimate is used.
• Public-sector exposure uses ONS workforce counts.
• Private business cost is not fiscal unless taxed.

Gross impact

• Central public-sector HR and training cost is £0.15bn.
• Paid cover for essential contact adds £0.20bn.
• No broad compensation payments are included.
• Tax receipts are assumed unchanged.

Fiscal build-up, central case

• Public HR and training: +£0.15bn
• Paid cover for essential contact: +£0.20bn
• Enforcement and tribunal cost: +£0.05bn
• Offsetting productivity assumption: -£0.10bn

Central net impact: +£0.3bn in 2027-28.

Behaviour and pass-through

• Low case assumes guidance-led compliance.
• Central assumes some paid cover in public services.
• High case assumes broader disputes and cover.
• Employers may reduce off-hours contact or formalise on-call pay.
• No wellbeing saving is deducted.

Phasing

• 2026-27: +£0.1bn. Guidance only.
• 2027-28: +£0.3bn. First compliance year.
• 2028-29: +£0.2bn. Policies settle.
• 2029-30: +£0.2bn. Steady state.

Main source groups

• Department for Business and Trade, "Employment Rights Act 2025 - Economic Analysis" (2026): The ERA economic analysis estimates around £1bn annual direct business cost before social-care bargaining; provides official baseline costs and affected groups.
• Office for National Statistics, "Public sector employment, UK: December 2025" (2026): ONS estimates UK public-sector employment at about 6.19 million in December 2025; sets the population exposed to public-pay policies.
• Ministry of Justice, "Tribunal Statistics Quarterly: October to December 2025" (2026): Employment Tribunals received 13,000 single claims and had 58,000 open single cases in Q3 2025; shows enforcement capacity is already a binding risk.
• Autor, Kerr and Kugler, "Does Employment Protection Reduce Productivity?" (Economic Journal, 2007): Employment-protection changes can reduce productivity where firms face higher firing and adjustment costs; supports caution on policies that raise dismissal, scheduling or adjustment costs.
• OECD, "OECD Employment Outlook 2024" (2024): Used to support the baseline, affected-population sizing or behavioural assumptions in the illustrative scenario.
• DiNardo, Fortin and Lemieux, "Labor Market Institutions and the Distribution of Wages, 1973-1992" (Econometrica, 1996): Labour-market institutions can compress wage inequality through wage floors and bargaining power; useful for distributional channels, not for claiming free fiscal gains.
• Green Party of England and Wales, "Workers' Charter 2026" (2026): Used to define the pledge wording, policy scope and implementation scenario being modelled.