By Jonathan Armstrong, Compliance Lawyer at Punter Southall Law
At just after 1pm today Sir Keir Starmer announced that he’d accepted an invitation from the King to form the next Government. Labour has a majority not seen since the days of Tony Blair but how might it use its time in office to change the world of compliance? The Labour manifesto is 135 pages long but won’t tell the whole story for what’s ahead. Clearly there will be work to be done in setting out the agenda for the next 5 years and many key ministerial appointments have not yet been made but, with the usual qualifications on these being predictions and not fact here’s some thoughts:
Bribery & corruption
The last Labour Government saw the passing of the Bribery Act 2010 as one of the key components of its time in office when it was last in power. But it didn’t have time to enforce the Act as the Act was effectively passed in the last days of Gordon Brown’s administration. It has the opportunity now to enforce an anti-corruption agenda. Sir Keir was formerly head of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) and knows the criminal justice system well. At the same time Labour has promised to look at corrupt contracts from the last administration, notably in PPE procurement during the pandemic. They inherit a new Director of the SFO who’s only been in office since September 2023 and he seems keen on change too with new investigations including dawn raids. In addition Labour proposed a new COVID Corruption Commissioner specifically tasked with looking into £7.2bn of contracts which have caused concern. The new administration has a chance to increase anti-corruption enforcement and show change from what was perceived to be a more lax enforcement regime during Boris Johnson’s time in office.
AI
The new Government is also likely to look again at AI enforcement. Whilst the EU AI Act seeks to regulate AI through a new legal regime, the last UK Government favoured self-regulation. That may change. Labour plans to set up a new Regulatory Innovation Office which will look at the challenges of AI and support existing regulators including the Information Commissioner’s Office and the Competition and Markets Authority in using their existing powers to regulate AI. Labour may also bring in specific legislation – that might be a simplified version of the EU AI Act. With a decent majority and a favourable legislative timetable it may even be possible for new UK legislation to come into force by at the same time as the EU legislation in 2026.
Labour also plans to set up a National Data Library which can be used to support AI applications given the issues which exist with training data currently. The model could be the new Rail Data Marketplace set up under the last administration.
Data protection
The proposed Data Protection & Digital Information Bill did not survive the wash-up process at the end of the outgoing Parliament. This would likely signal Labour opposition to some aspects of the Bill. It is likely to return in a modified form removing some of its more controversial provisions. The new administration is also likely to be more cautious about jeopardizing the UK’s EU adequacy status so expect fewer changes to UK data protection law than previously proposed. These changes might include some relaxation of some aspects of GDPR for research and innovation especially in an attempt to improve the NHS.
Justice
Labour has made commitments to tackle crime, policing and the court backlog. They have also made commitments to fix the prison system. If they can pull this off this may free up resources for more white collar investigations including in bribery as we’ve mentioned above and enforcing recently enacted anti-fraud legislation.
Public sector
Those dealing with the public sector can expect changes here too. Labour has proposed a so-called ‘Hillsborough Law’ with a new duty of candour for public servants. In addition, whilst not a manifesto commitment, there may be an extension of the Freedom of Information (FOI) regime to those in the private sector undertaking work for the public sector.
Trade & customs
The Labour party has a manifesto commitment to review trade barriers. This could lead to closer alignment with the EU. Likely members of Sir Keir’s cabinet have also favoured using exiting legislation to look more closely at the origin of goods, notably goods made in alleged slavery conditions in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR). Tougher action on XUAR may also be politically expedient for a Labour Government wishing to learn lessons from a perceived lack of support for Muslim interests in some constituencies.
Labor/employment law
Labour is likely to want to review the existing employment law regime in its first 10 days. This could include a right to disconnect but this is unlikely to be as hard and fast as the laws enacted and proposed in some parts of Europe. Sir Keir is known to be keen on work-life balance so expect some sort of proposals encouraging employers and employees to agree on working hours, prohibitions on emails at weekends for those not scheduled to work etc.