Repeal post-1979 strike restrictions: calculation note

Central fiscal result

+£2.0bn - Net public-finance impact in 2027-28

Low case: +£0.0bn. High case: +£10.0bn. Positive numbers are fiscal costs or borrowing pressure. Negative numbers are Exchequer savings or receipts.

Scenario and baseline

• Remove post-1979 strike restrictions, including limits on ballots, picketing and solidarity action.
• 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 workers, unions, employers and strike days.
• DBT estimates 6.67m employee union members.
• Public-sector union density is 49.9%.
• Future strike behaviour is not predictable.

Gross impact

• DBT estimates union density at 22.0% in 2024.
• Official repeal costs for recent strike laws are near zero administratively.
• Central adds £1.50bn public pay/disruption pressure.
• High case allows multi-sector strike-year costs.

Fiscal build-up, central case

• Public-sector pay settlement pressure: +£1.00bn
• Strike disruption and contingency: +£1.00bn
• Administration and legal transition: +£0.10bn
• Tax and NI offsets: -£0.10bn
• Lower recent-law compliance costs: +£0.00bn

Central net impact: +£2.0bn in 2027-28.

Behaviour and pass-through

• Low case assumes legal repeal with little behaviour change.
• Central assumes stronger public-sector bargaining pressure.
• High case assumes more strike days and solidarity action.
• Employers may reduce hiring where wage pressure rises.
• Output loss is not fully monetised.

Phasing

• 2026-27: +£0.3bn. Legal transition.
• 2027-28: +£2.0bn. Bargaining response.
• 2028-29: +£2.5bn. Disputes may widen.
• 2029-30: +£3.0bn. Settlement effects persist.

Main source groups

• Department for Business and Trade, "Trade union membership, UK, 1995 to 2024" (2025): DBT estimates union density at 22.0%, with 49.9% public and 11.7% private density; sets the current collective-bargaining baseline.
• OECD and AIAS, "United Kingdom: collective bargaining indicators" (2025): OECD/AIAS report UK collective bargaining coverage of about 40.2% in 2024; provides institutional context for bargaining expansion.
• House of Commons Library, "Trade unions and industrial relations" (2026): Commons Library summarises trade-union law and industrial-relations rules after the ERA; defines the legal baseline for repeal options.
• 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.
• Farber, Herbst, Kuziemko and Naidu, "Unions and Inequality Over the Twentieth Century" (Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2021): Unionisation historically reduced wage inequality, partly by compressing pay within and across workplaces; explains who may gain from collective-bargaining reforms.
• Frandsen, "The Surprising Impacts of Unionization" (Journal of Labor Economics, 2021): Unionisation can raise earnings for covered workers while shifting costs to employers; relevant to bargaining reforms and incidence, but not a fiscal costing.
• Green Party of England and Wales, "Workers' Charter 2026" (2026): Used to define the pledge wording, policy scope and implementation scenario being modelled.