Please read the link of the Debate / Reading and the fact sheet which is an overview of the Employment Rights Bill. We will keep you updated with the progress of this Bill and we will be giving updated analysis as well. The WEU has long campaigned for some of issues included in the Bill.
Employment Rights Bill – Taken from the House of Lords Webpages
The Bill had its report stage and third reading in the House of Commons on 11 and 12 March, and has proceeded to the House of Lords for further scrutiny, beginning with a second reading which happened on Thursday, 27 March 2025.
Please read the link of the Debate / Reading and the fact sheet
Employment Rights Bill – Hansard – UK Parliament
Employment Rights Bill
Government Bill
Originated in the House of Commons, Session 2024-25
Last updated: 28 March 2025 at 17:19
Commons,
Lords,
Final stages
Long title
A Bill to make provision to amend the law relating to employment rights; to make provision about procedure for handling redundancies; to make provision about the treatment of workers involved in the supply of services under certain public contracts; to provide for duties to be imposed on employers in relation to equality; to amend the definition of “employment business” in the Employment Agencies Act 1973; to provide for the establishment of the School Support Staff Negotiating Body and the Social Care Negotiating Bodies; to amend the Seafarers’ Wages Act 2023; to make provision for the implementation of international agreements relating to maritime employment; to make provision about trade unions, industrial action, employers’ associations and the functions of the Certification Officer; to make provision about the enforcement of legislation relating to the labour market; and for connected purposes.
Sponsoring departments
Department for Business and Trade
Labour, Stalybridge and Hyde
Department for Business and Trade
Labour, Life peer
Current version of the Bill
HL Bill 81 (as brought from the Commons)
Get File
14 March 2025
Lords
Bill passage
Bill started in the House of Commons
1st reading
2nd reading
Committee stage
Report stage
3rd reading
Bill in the House of Lords
1st reading
2nd reading
Report stage
3rd reading
Final stages
Consideration of amendments
Royal Assent
Factsheet: Employment Rights Bill – Overview Overview
The Plan to Make Work Pay, developed through close collaboration with business and trade unions, is a manifesto commitment and a core part of one of the Government’s five mission-led priorities to grow the economy. The plan is designed to help more people to stay in work, support workers’ productivity and improve living standards.
One of the first significant delivery vehicles for this plan is the Employment Rights Bill. Once implemented, the Bill will represent the biggest upgrade in employment rights for a generation.
What measures are contained within the Bill?
The Bill will support family friendly rights by improving flexibility and security:
• Make existing entitlements to Paternity Leave and Unpaid Parental leave available from ‘Day 1’ of employment.
• Enable parents to take their paternity leave and pay after their shared parental leave and pay.
• Introduce a new right to unpaid bereavement leave, allowing employees to take leave from work to grieve the loss of a loved one.
• Introduce new protections against dismissal for pregnant women, mothers on maternity leave, and mothers who return to work for a six-month period after they return to work.
• Strengthen the existing ‘day-one’ right to request flexible working, by requiring employers to explain the grounds on which they’ve denied a request and adding the requirement that a rejection of a request be reasonable. It will address one-sided flexibility, ensuring that jobs provide a baseline of security for workers:
• End exploitative zero hours contracts by introducing rights to guaranteed hours, reasonable notice of shifts, and payments for short-notice cancellation of shifts, with corresponding rights for agency workers.
• End unscrupulous ‘fire and rehire’ and ‘fire and replace’ practices by considering dismissals for failing to agree to a change in contract as automatically unfair, except where businesses genuinely have no alternative.
• Remove the two-year qualifying period of employment for the right to claim unfair dismissal, making it a day-one right, while simultaneously enabling employers to ensure the employee is a good fit for the job by establishing a new statutory probation period.
• Strengthen collective redundancy rights by ensuring obligations to consult and notify apply when: (a) employers propose 20 or more redundancies at one establishment or; (b) employers propose an amount of redundancies which meets a new threshold to be established in secondary legislation.
• Close the maritime redundancy notification loophole, ensuring that operators providing regular services to British ports cannot avoid the collective redundancy notification requirement. 2 The Bill will prioritise fairness, equality and wellbeing of workers:
• Strengthen the duty on employers to take ‘reasonable steps’ to prevent sexual harassment of their employees by requiring them to take ‘all reasonable steps’.
• Introduce an obligation on employers to not permit harassment of their employees by third parties.
• Introduce a power to enable regulations to specify steps which are to be regarded as ‘reasonable’ for an employer to take in order to prevent sexual harassment.
• Strengthen protections for whistleblowers, by making it explicit that sexual harassment can be the basis for a protected disclosure.
• Motivate employers to improve gender equality by requiring relevant employers to produce action plans, setting out how they are addressing the gender pay gap issues and supporting employees going through the menopause. It will ensure workers get fair pay for a fair day’s work:
• Strengthen Statutory Sick Pay by removing the Lower Earnings Limit and removing the waiting period.
• Re-instate the School Support Staff Negotiating Body to improve pay and conditions for school support staff in England.
• Provide for the establishment of a Fair Pay Agreements process in the adult social care sector in England and social care sectors in Scotland and Wales.
• Strengthen existing tipping law by requiring employers to consult with workers when developing or revising their tipping policies.
• Re-introduce the two-tier code on workforce matters ensuring that employees from the private sector working on outsourced contracts will be offered terms and conditions broadly comparable to those transferred from the public sector.
• Allow for the creation of a mandatory Seafarers’ Charter, to protect the working conditions of seafarers aboard ships operating regular services from UK ports.
• Provide powers to maintain compliance with international law by staying up to date with international maritime conventions. The Bill will modernise trade union legislation giving trade unions greater freedom to organise, represent and negotiate on behalf of their workers:
• Repeal the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act 2023
• Repeal the great majority of the Trade Union Act 2016 and bring in a 12 month mandate and 10 day notice period for industrial action.
• Strengthen trade unions’ right of access, including providing for digital access.
• Simplify trade union recognition process, including providing better access arrangements for unions and dealing more effectively with unfair practices.
• Introduce new rights and protections for trade unions representatives.
• Introduce a duty for employers to inform workers of their right to join a trade union.
• Broaden the scope of blacklisting protections which may be made in regulations.
• Simplify the information required for industrial action notices.
• Provide protection from detriment on the grounds of industrial action.