UK: Employment Reforms: Update
Authors: Stephen Miller, Corinna Harris, and Sophie Jackson
The Employment Rights Bill has now passed its second reading in the House of Lords.
On 27 March 2025, after a lengthy debate, the Employment Rights Bill passed its second reading in the House of Lords and has now been sent to a Committee of the Whole House which will scrutinise the Bill in detail from 29 April 2025.
The Department for Business and Trade has published some new factsheets which set out what each policy or framework within the Bill aims to do and how it will work.
The government has published a call for evidence on equality law, which is open until 30 June 2025. It is wide-ranging, seeking evidence and views on a number of issues, including:
- The prevalence of race and disability pay discrimination
- Making the right to equal pay effective for ethnic minority and disabled people
- Improving pay transparency
- Strengthening protections against combined discrimination
- Reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment
- Commencing the socio-economic duty
The government has also announced that it plans to extend the requirement for businesses to carry out right to work checks to ‘anyone working in their name’. This is expected to include gig economy and zero-hours workers. Business could face a civil penalty of up to £60,000 per worker if they fail to carry out the required right to work checks.
Key Action Points for Human Resources and In-house Counsel
Separately, the government has published a Green Paper, Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working. It states that, to increase the employment rate of disabled people and those with health conditions, flexible working practices, inclusive recruitment and efforts to implement reasonable adjustments will all need to improve. Significantly, it notes that:
- Only 23% of employers report that they provide workplace adjustments to support disabled staff and staff with long-term health condition.
- The Access to Work scheme currently only supports approximately 1% of working disabled people.
