Earlier this week, Paul Scully MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for BEIS, confirmed to Parliament that the government is currently analysing the responses to the consultation on reform of non-compete clauses in employment contracts along with available data and will publish its response "in due course". 

Mr Scully confirmed that any decision to progress with reforms to non-compete clauses required consideration of both the benefits and risks before implementation, but he did not comment further on the government's plans. The consultation on the reform of non-compete clauses in employment contracts closed on 26 February 2021, and was carried out due to government concerns that the use of non-compete clauses (or restrictive covenants, as they are often called) are inhibiting entrepreneurship, making it more difficult for individuals to start new businesses and preventing people from finding new employment.  

The consultation process had canvassed views on two possible options for reform:-

In many ways the direction of this proposed reform is at odds with the direction of travel of recent Court judgments that have been willing to enforce non-compete clauses: for example, a case in the last few weeks saw an employment lawyer prevented from joining a competitor firm for a period of 12 months.