Employment Rights Bill 2025 so far (part 1)
The new Employment Rights Bill is continuing to make steady process through Parliament and currently is at the Report Stage of the House of Lords which precedes the the 3rd and Final of readings for the Lords to table any further amendments before returning it to the House of Commons for its final reading and then its presentation to King Charles to receive Royal Assent and then enter into law.
So what does the Bill look like now, what benefits will it confer to employees and our members and how does it compare to other nations within the context of general Employment Rights?
As outdated in the government’s summer Manifesto, the bill still aims to effectively end the grossly exploitative practice of the use of zero hours contracts which currently give employers unprecedented powers to provide no working hours to employees without breaching the employees contract which came into force under s.27 Employment Rights Act 1996.
Whilst zero hours contracts are still used a handful of European countries[1], they have largely been rightly condemned and removed from the landscape of industrial Europe on the grounds of their potential for abuse by employers. Research from the London School of Economics indicates that wages are on average 6% lower than for workers on substantive contracts but they attract more applicants.[2]
Looking more at the health and well-being impacts of zero hours contracts on the health of employees in a Report by the University of Herefordshire from 2017, their findings clearly demonstrated that the health and wellbeing of workers on such contracts was compromised increasingly over time.[3]. This was further underlined in a more recent piece of academic research published in the British Journal of Industrial Relations[4]. The research found that people on Zero Hours contracts were twice as likely to develop mental health illnesses amongst a host of other findings. This amendment also goes into considerable detail in relation to the employers obligation to provide guarantee hours to their staff on existing zero hours contracts. However, the amendments to s.27BB Employment Rights Act 1996, contains amendments which will facilitate limited terms contracts and of course the ‘proportionality’ test has been used for employers who can make the case that terms offered (even if less favourable - though there are exceptions) are necessary given the economic/financial conditions they are experiencing at the time. On a more positive note, employees can present a claim to Employment Tribunals if the new provisions are breached.
The Bill also crystallises the rights of shift workers to ‘reasonable notice’ of cancellation and remuneration by the employer if the cancellation falls outside of the period of short notice which is defined as not later than the day & time the shift starts and not more than 7 days prior notice. This continues to give employers considerably lawful means to effectively keep their staff on a slightly shorter leash albeit not so short as zero hours contracts.
In addition the bill proposes to alter the right to make a flexible working request from the first day of employment as it currently stands at only after the six months service (s.80 & G Employment Rights Act 1996). This amendment effectively builds on the amendment brought in during the COVID-19 outbreak to facilitate hybrid/home working. The amendment as it currently stands outlines the obligation to provide a reasonable ‘notification’ which explains the reasons for refusal rather than just referring to one of the 9 statutory grounds for refusal.
Flexible working practices were, like any restriction to workers rights, is always sold to them as some kind of benefit. In this case, the flexibility to meet life’s changes by asking your kind and empathic employer to tweak your contract of employment to make the daily grind slightly less exhausting and therefor more manageable. They omitted the bit about the reasons for refusal being set in stone whilst also at the political whim of the then Secretary of State the otherwise historically unremarkable Conservative life peer, Gillian Shepherd. The decision, should prove productive in the long-term although it will likely anger small businesses in the short term. The current position has been covered in considerable detail both by the Cochrane Library in 2010[5], who has repeatedly conducted a systemic review of flexible working practices and the subsequent administrations for 14 years.
There will be a minor adjustment to the rules in relation to statutory sick pay which will effectively remove the current three day waiting period which means that employees in receipt of sick pay bill above subsistence level benefits will not have to wait for three days before they have any entitlement to this benefit. This helps to bring the UK in line with many European countries who have overwhelmingly found that higher statutory sick rates ultimately result in greater economic activity and lower overall absenteeism.[6]
The World Health Organisation last year published a report demonstrating that work absenteeism has remained largely static across Europe and has not adversely affected markets as many employers have consistently warned us all.[7]
he Bill also creates a more robust framework for employer obligations in relation to tips and gratuities (where staff working in venues frequented by obscenely rich individuals can make considerable money). The Bill merely requires employers to consult with Trade Union representatives and or Employee Representatives before producing a policy. But the existing terms of the Employment (Allocation of tips Act 2023) remain largely unchanged.
Parental leave entitlement will see the removal of the qualifying period and changes to entitlement alongside shared parental leave. There will also be a minor adjustment to bereavement leave which will tidy up some of the inconsistencies in the existing legislation and specifically addressed the matter of bereaved parents rights to leave.
Research by UCL’s IOE Faculty for Education and Society 2021 found that the shared parental leave rules were amongst the most restrictive in Europe.[8]
The bill will also finally enshrine in law, the obligation of employers to protect staff from sexual harassment and take reasonable steps to prevent it. This follows the landmark legal decisions raised after revelations about Sir Philip Green were made public in 2018.[9]
The changes in the Bill make it a legal requirement for employers to take ‘reasonable steps’ to prevent sexual harassment and to take action against employees it suspects or has evidence to support the requirement for an investigation to take place. It also obligates employers against third party harassment and also includes sexual harassment as a specific ‘protected disclosure’ for ‘whistleblowing purposes. Employees United welcomes the inclusion of this in statute but is perplexed over the governments decision not to extend this protection to include all ‘protected characteristics’ enshrined in s.5-12 Equality Act 2010. These are clearly areas that we must continue to lobby government to change.
Although the bill as it stands could have gone further in its protections as detailed above, if it gets through the final reading in the House of Commons without too many amendments, it will usher in the most wide ranging changes for employees in nearly thirty years and Employees United Union becomes these changes.
Perhaps the most sweeping change, and certainly one of the most bureaucratically challenging reforms is the removal of the qualifying period for the right not to be unfairly dismissed. Effectively this removes the bizarre anomaly which existed in UK Employment Law which meant employers could unfairly dismiss staff in the first two years of their employment. Further, ‘The Bill’ more clearly defines rights to pursue unfair dismissal claims against employers who dismiss employees during pregnancy, shared family leave and for refusing to agree to accept a variation to contract.
These changes will mean that employees can enjoy these protections from their first day of their employment. In respect of the right to pursue unfair dismissal for refusing to accept new terms of a ‘variation to contract,’ there are similar clauses enshrined in the new bill for employers to provide lawful grounds for a ‘variation to contract’ that can be deemed lawfully, though ‘the Bill does provide clear grounds which employers must meet, rather than leave that decision solely with the Employment Tribunals to define. It is again noteworthy to highlight that this right will not apply to issues related to redundancies. We fully expect there to be a surge in ‘sham redundancies’ when the Bill comes into effect and whilst we appreciate that employers require this protection, allowing the two year qualifying period to remain seems ill-conceived and a large concession to the CBI.
Having a waiting time or service length requirement to access rights not to be exploited bullied and dismissed with notice should seem like an entirely unreasonable piece of legislation for one of the world’s largest economies to maintain in 2025! Of course it was favoured by the CBI who are working as we speak to bring about the complete abolition of UK employments as promised. A malleable workforce, unstable and uncertain is more likely to ‘look the other way,’ agree to the extra work and never rock the boat. This section of the Bill will effectively put a atop top this appalling practice.
We strongly welcome the introduction of the duty for employers to have defined Equality Action Plans as an amendment to the Equality Act 2010 and we particularly welcome the amendment to s.78A(4) which specifically addresses the gender pay gap and supporting employees diagnosed with menopausal symptoms. Though we believe that this requirement will simply be to ensure employers meet their obligations defined in other areas of ‘The Bill’ and that in respect of addressing protecting rights for women going through the menopause, the amendment should have addressed this by making ‘menopause’ a ‘protected characteristic,’ and given that it impacts on half the workforce, we suggest that the Bill should have considered adding it to the list of Scheduled disabilities for the sake of clarity.[10]
Additionally on Part 4 of ‘The Bill’ there are a number of additional proposals which will alter the rights of trade unions in relation to the right to access workplaces, recognition, finances picketing, and the repeal of the high device of strikes: minimum service levels 2022 legislation. I suggest to go through those changes next week as whilst they are wide ranging, they affect few people on a day to day basis.
[1] https://shorturl.at/SmSLb [2] https://shorturl.at/CGRsO ,Economics (LSE) has found [3]The_Effect_of_Zero_Hours_Contract_on_the_Wellbeing_and_Career_Progression_of_the_Worker, [4]Brit J Industrial Rel - 2023 - Farina - https://shorturl.at/fUYm3, [5]https://shorturl.at/XB9io, [6] Nick Litsardopoulos, Jonny Gifford, Meghna Sharma, Astrid Allen,Zofia Bajorek and Tony Wilson, ‘Work and health:international comparisons with the UK’ Institute for Employment Studies (2025), [7]https://shorturl.at/E2Gnf, [8]https://shorturl.at/zsBMa, [9]https://shorturl.at/tVn6j, [10] Equality Act 2010, Schedule 1(6)(1)