UK: Employment Rights Bill: What’s happening next?
Authors: Graham Mitchell, Sophie Jackson, and Charlotte Stern
The Employment Rights Bill has been billed as the biggest shake up of employment rights in a generation – what are the latest developments?
The Government is back from its summer break, and following the cabinet reshuffle, some commentators have speculated about whether this will impact the Employment Rights Bill. Our view is that it is unlikely that the Bill will be derailed now.
On 15 September 2025, the House of Commons voted on the various amendments made by the House of Lords. Key House of Lord’s amendments included a six-month qualifying period for the right to claim unfair dismissal and a change to the planned duty on employers to offer low and zero-hours workers a guaranteed hours contract. Instead, the Lords suggested it just to be a right for workers to request such a contract. We understand that any non-government amendments have been rejected by the House of Commons and that a committee will now be required to explain the reasons to the House of Lords. At this stage, it is unclear when the Bill will be finalised.
Even once the Bill is passed, many of the Bill’s proposals will be subject to consultation before regulations bring them into effect. We are expecting consultations to be launched over the next few months on:
- ‘Day one’ unfair dismissal protection, including the new statutory probation period
- Changes to collective redundancies
- Flexible working reforms
- Trade union changes
Restrictions to the use of zero hours contracts and ‘fire and rehire.’
Key Action Points for Human Resources and In-house Counsel
We will provide further updates regularly on progress.
