Employment Rights Bill – Briefing published
The Employment Rights Bill was published on 10 October 2024. It is described as the biggest upgrade to rights at work for a generation and the Government states that the Bill will help “drive growth in the economy and support more people into secure work”. On 12 February 2025, the House of Commons published a Briefing on the Bill.
The Bill contains wide-ranging proposals including day-one unfair dismissal rights, limits to the practice of “fire and rehire”, the right to a guaranteed hours contract, more support for working families, increased protection from harassment and extensive changes to trade unions and industrial action legislation. For an overview of the Bill see our previous article – Employment Rights Bill Published.
Most of the measures contained in the Bill will not be in place until 2026 and until then, the Bill continues to progress through the various stages of the Parliamentary process.
On 12 February 2025, the House of Commons published a comprehensive Briefing on the Bill and its progress so far. The Briefing summarises the Committee debates on the Bill, the witness evidence provided and key themes that led to significant debate.
Of the 264 proposed amendments to the Bill, 149 of these were Government amendments which have been agreed. All other amendments were opposed or withdrawn. Appendix 1 to the Briefing provides a useful summary of the amendments.
Witness evidence
There have been four witness evidence sessions to date.
At the first, evidence was provided by organisations that represent British businesses and HR professionals. These included the CBI, Federation of Small Businesses, British Chambers of Commerce and the CIPD.
At the second session, evidence was provided by organisations in the hospitality, recruitment and manufacturing industry including the Recruitment and Employment Confederation, the Food and Drink Confederation and trade union representatives.
The third session related to the retail industry and included evidence from the Association of Convenience Stores as well as trade unions representing retail workers.
As part of the fourth session, evidence was provided by trade union representatives such as Prospect, employment law specialists, and representatives from human and employment rights organisations such as the EHRC.
Key themes
Particular themes that came out of the debates are:
- Small businesses – the impact of the measures on small businesses. These might be less well equipped to deal with significant regulatory changes and less likely to afford additional costs arising from Employment Tribunal claims as a result of day-one unfair dismissal protection. There was some debate about whether smaller employers should be exempt from some of the provisions. However, the Minister for Employment Rights, Justin Madders, responded that such an approach would risk creating a “two-tier system of employment rights”.
- Unfair dismissal – there were concerns about removing the current two-year qualifying period and the impact on businesses choosing to employ new staff and how the new statutory probationary period would operate.
The Minister for Employment Rights, stated that:
Our changes will not prevent fair dismissal. We will ensure that businesses can hire with confidence. We will ensure that employers can operate contractual probation periods, which are separate from the new statutory probationary periods. During the statutory probationary periods, employers will have a lighter-touch standard to meet when they need to dismiss an employee who is not suitable for the job.
We already know from the time the Bill was published that these high-profile changes to unfair dismissal rights will not be in place before autumn 2026. See our earlier article – Employment Rights Bill and Unfair Dismissal.
- Flexible working – the impact of the flexible working provisions on businesses and employees, as businesses with smaller workforces may struggle to balance multiple flexible working requests with business needs.
- Fire and rehire practices – how much flexibility to give struggling businesses from the ban on dismissing workers for refusing to agree to variation of contract.
- Zero hours contracts – there were concerns that the changes could inadvertently remove flexibility and informality from employment contracts, which might be valued by employees who would struggle to join the workforce on more formal terms. Also, how strict the restrictions on zero hours contracts should be and whether or not these would lead to increased unemployment.
Increasing Employment Tribunal time limits
A very high-profile amendment is increasing the time limits for Employment Tribunal claims from three months to six months. It is described as one of the most significant new topics introduced.
An interesting comment was made by the Minister for Employment Rights about easing pressure on Employment Tribunals:
“In recent years, as we know, demand has increased sharply. Increasing the time limit from three to six months will help to reduce pressure on the employment tribunal system, allowing parties to try to resolve their differences before resorting to formal litigation”.
Currently, most claims have to be brought within three months although for some, for example, statutory redundancy pay claims and equal pay claims the time limit is already six months.
Next steps
The Government will consult on the majority of the reforms set out in the Bill in 2025 and there are no further details at the moment.
For details of the consultation papers issued on 21 October 2024, see our previous article – Employment Rights Bill Recent Developments. The Government is currently considering its response to these consultations and we will keep you updated.
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