Employment Rights Bill

An Employment Rights Bill will significantly transform the HR and employment law landscape.

The Bill, published on 10 October 2024, contains various measures covering individual and collective employment law rights. Implementation of the Bill will be approached in phases, involving some consultations, the use of secondary legislation and, in some cases, codes of practice. Reforms of unfair dismissal will take effect no sooner than autumn 2026. A minority of Bill’s changes are expected to be introduced more quickly, including repealing some industrial action regulation.

Many, but not all, of the Bill’s measures were set out in Labour’s Plan to Make Work Pay. Those that did not make it into the Bill (see Next Steps to Make Work Pay) include:

• a ‘right to switch off’, preventing employees from being contacted out of hours, except in exceptional circumstances
• a requirement for large employers to report their ethnicity and disability pay gap
• moving towards a single status of worker, and
• reviews of the parental leave and carers leave systems

The headline provisions in the Bill are listed below - with links to where we've included further analysis.

New individual employment rights

Included in the Bill are the following:

• ending ‘exploitative zero hours contracts - read more
• ending ‘fire and rehire’ - read more
• removing the two-year qualifying period for protections from unfair dismissal and a statutory probationary period during which a light touch dismissal process will apply - read more
• granting Day 1 rights to paternity leave, unpaid parental leave and unpaid bereavement leave, and granting entitlement to SSP from the first day of illness - read more
• making flexible working the default for all, unless the employer can prove it’s unreasonable - read more
• strengthening protections against dismissal for pregnant women and new mothers - read more
• increasing protections from sexual harassment, including third-party harassment - read more
• amending the law on collective redundancy consultation - read more
• increased obligations re gender pay gaps and menopause issues at work - read more
• establishing a Fair Work Agency - read more

Trade union law

The Bill will repeal much of the Conservative Party’s trade union laws, including the Trade Union Act 2016 and the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act 2023. Amongst other things, unions will be able more easily to access a workplace, organise, be recognised, and ballot for industrial action. Read more.