Employment Rights Bill

An Overview of The Employment Rights Bill

Last week, the Government released their Employment Rights Bill before Parliament, which outlined a series of commitments made by the Government to protect workers’ rights and to “make work pay”.

Whilst there is still a lot of detail to be nailed down, this promises to be the biggest shake-up of employment rights in decades.

What does the Bill include?

• Day one protection from unfair dismissal – currently the qualifying period for unfair dismissal is 2 years but this qualifying period will be removed when the bill becomes law;
• Plans to consult on a new statutory probationary period for new hires;
• Further restrictions on fire-and-rehire practices to change an employee’s terms and conditions – this will be automatically unfair unless the employer can demonstrate there is no other alternative;
• Improved access to statutory entitlements, including a day-one right to paternity, paternal and unpaid parental leave, and paid bereavement leave;
• Offering flexible working by default from day one unless it can be proven as reasonably unfeasible;
• Additional protections for new mothers and those on family-friendly leave, by extending protections for up to six months after returning to work;
• Reforms to SSP to enable SSP to be claimed from day one of the absence rather than after the current three waiting days. The lower earnings threshold is also likely to be removed;
• Further regulations for zero-hours contracts, including providing regular working hours over a reference period, giving reasonable notice of shifts, and compensation to employees when employers cancel shifts without reasonable notice;
• Removal of “establishment” from the rules on collective redundancy consultation meaning that collective consultation will be triggered when an employer proposes to dismiss 20 or more employees within a 90 day period within the workplace as a whole and not limited to “one establishment”;
• Increased obligations for employers with over 250 employees to have action plans on gender pay reporting and support for employees going through menopause;
• Greater trade union rights within the workplace, including collective bargaining, a statement of rights to enter into a trade union within employment terms, and repeal of existing industrial relations reforms;
• Additional requirements to recent legislation on Preventing Sexual Harassment within the workplace where employers must take ALL reasonable steps to prevent and not just “reasonable” steps.

Future changes

The Government have also outlined some longer-term delivery of reforms, including:

• The requirement for larger employers to report their ethnicity and disability pay gap
• The “right to switch off” outside of working hours
• Reviewing parental and carers leave systems, TUPE regulations, and health and safety guidance
• Introducing a framework to differentiate workers and self-employed
• Consulting on the use of surveillance technologies and on raising collective grievances
• Extending the Freedom of Information Act

When to expect the changes

Please don’t panic!

It is estimated that the Parliamentary passage of the Bill could take up to 18 months, and therefore most changes are not expected until Autumn 2026.

We shall keep you in the loop on timescales and further detail on the plans.