Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, whether employers should calculate (a) redundancy and (b) notice pay based on (i) employees' salary; and what the relevance of payments through the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme is to those calculations.

During this difficult period, we urge employers to exercise discretion and not use the Job Retention Scheme to make someone redundant on less favourable terms than they would otherwise have received.

The provisions relating to calculation of redundancy and notice pay under the Employment Rights Act continue to apply when an individual is on the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme.

Employees who are dismissed due to redundancy and who satisfy certain qualifying conditions are statutorily entitled to a lump sum from their employer, based on their age, length of service and contractual weekly earnings, subject to a statutory upper limit, payable at, or soon after, the dismissal date.

Employees are also eligible for notice pay if they have worked for at least one month for their employers. The entitlements include one week’s notice if employed between one month and 2 years and an additional week’s notice for each year employed more than 2 years, capped at 12 weeks.