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With the ruling by the Supreme Court stating that Uber drivers should be classed as ‘workers’ and not independent contractors, many experts believe this shows just how much clarity is needed for employment status.

Commenting, Andy Chamberlain, Director of Policy at IPSE (the Association of Independent Professionals and the Self-Employed), said, “The very fact this case has come to the UK’s Supreme Court shows the UK’s employment law is not working. There is a glaring need for clarity in this area, to clear the confusion in the gig economy.

“The gig economy is enormously complex, including many people who are legitimately self-employed and many others who really, based on their working circumstances, should be classed as workers. It is a patchwork of grey areas between employment and self-employment: the only way to resolve this tangle is to clarify employment status in UK law.

“With the pandemic still raging and its financial impact ever more visible, it is more urgent than ever that struggling people who should technically be classed as workers get the rights they deserve. To bring this about – and protect the freedom of legitimately self-employed people – we urge government to write a definition of self-employment into law.”

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Tania Bowers, Legal Counsel for The Association of Professional Staffing Companies (APSCo), said, “While the position on employment rights for workers is now clearer, in that the ruling states drivers are entitled to be paid at least the National Minimum Wage for the time they are available for work and not just when they are driving passengers, there is still the anomaly of a different employment status for tax purposes and there is no definition of a worker status for tax. One’s status is either employed or self-employed leading to the artificial construct of ‘deemed employee’.

“We have long argued that that an overhaul of employment status would remove the current differentiation in law between employment status for rights and taxation, and despite today’s judgement an overhaul of employment status is long overdue.”

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