Legislation / Legal
DfT: A new system to tackle uninsured driving has moved a step closer as Road Safety Minister, Mike Penning has laid the final regulations in Parliament. Under Continuous Insurance Enforcement it ‘will be an offence to keep an uninsured vehicle, rather than just to drive when uninsured’.
Motorists will receive a letter telling them that their vehicle appears to be uninsured and warning them that they will be fined unless they take action. If the keeper fails to insure the vehicle they will be given a £100 fine. If the vehicle remains uninsured - regardless of whether the fine is paid - it could then be clamped, seized & destroyed. Vehicles with a valid Statutory Off Road Notice (SORN) will not be required to be insured.
FDA: The FDA is joining with the Civil Service Pensioners’ Alliance, Prospect, the Police Federation, National Association of Retired Police Officers and the GMB to launch a judicial review of the Government’s decision to change the index for uprating public sector pensions from the retail prices index (RPI) to the consumer prices index (CPI). The application was launched on Monday 18 April 2011.
FDA General Secretary Jonathan Baume said: “The Government’s decision – announced in the 2010 Budget - to change the index for uprating of pensions for senior public servants is wholly unacceptable and potentially illegal…… With CPI predicted to lag up to 1.5% behind RPI for the next five years to 2016, this change cuts at least 15% from the value of a pension and amounts to a considerable detrimental change that we are determined to oppose.”
Newswire – TUC: Government plans to extend the qualifying period for protection against unfair dismissal from one year to two will affect nearly 3m workers, the TUC said in its submission to the government's review of the employment tribunal system.
The TUC submission says that while more needs to be done to speed up tribunal claims, the government is seeking to do this by restricting access to justice and pricing low-paid vulnerable workers out of the system.
The TUC submission says that while more needs to be done to speed up tribunal claims, the government is seeking to do this by restricting access to justice and pricing low-paid vulnerable workers out of the system.
The TUC firmly opposes plans to introduce fees for those wishing to take their employers to employment tribunals and says that this will have a disproportionate impact on low paid workers. (Nearly 70% of tribunal claimants have average or below average earnings and 35% earn less than £15,000.
