The Employment Rights Bill is making its way through the latter stages of the parliamentary process to become law and the Government have now published its Implementing the Employment Rights Bill: Our Roadmap for Delivering Change as part of its Plan to Make Work Pay. It is intended to give employers, workers, trade unions and other stakeholders time to prepare for the reforms in the Bill.
Providing clarity for workers and organisations, the roadmap sets out how and when the Government will engage and consult on the provisions of the Bill that will require regulations and secondary legislation.
When will key reforms in the Bill come into effect?
The roadmap also lays out anticipated phased commencement dates for different parts of the Bill — providing clarity on when we can expect to see the changes take place “on the ground.”
It stretches from the time when, or soon after, the Bill receives Royal Assent (expected to be Autumn 2025) to 2027. It is made clear in the roadmap that this is an initial view which may change in line with the insights gained from further consultations and considering the need for employers and other relevant stakeholders time to prepare for the changes to be introduced.
Highlights from the plan include:
- Statutory Sick Pay reforms (removal of the lower earnings limit and waiting period) and a day-one right to paternity leave and unpaid parental leave will come into effect from April 2026
- Fire and re-hire restrictions, third party and sexual harassment enhancements and the extension of tribunal time limits from three to six months will come into effect from October 2026
- Day-one unfair dismissal rights and zero-hour contract reforms will come into effect from 2027.
Government amendments to the Bill
Additionally, the Government has proposed a series of amendments to the Employment Rights Bill.
The proposed amendments include extending unpaid bereavement leave in the Bill to include a day-one right to time off work to grieve a pregnancy loss before 24 weeks.
It has also been clarified that restrictions on the use of dismissal and re-engagement (also known as fire and re-hire), which will make dismissals for failing to agree to variation of terms unless in specific financial circumstances automatically unfair, will only apply to “restricted variations” to contracts such as changes to pay, bonuses, pensions, total hours worked, shift timings, and annual leave allowances.
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Other amendments include banning the use of NDAs in harassment and discrimination cases and prohibiting employers from replacing dismissed staff with agency workers in a redundancy situation.
Further changes to the Bill have been made during its progress in the House of Lords. This includes two amendments to key Government commitments:
- Changing the ‘right to a guaranteed hours contract’ for zero-hour and low hour workers to a ‘right to request a guaranteed hours contract’; and
- Replacing the day-one right to unfair dismissal protections with a six-month qualifying period.
An amended version of the Bill will be presented to the House of Commons who will then either agree to or reject these amendments before sending the final version of the Bill to receive Royal Assent.
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When are the new laws from the Employment Rights Bill coming into effect?
