Looking ahead to 2025, it’s difficult to see past the behemoth that is the Employment Rights Bill 2024.
As the Bill grinds its way through Parliament there will be further tweaks - and key elements are subject to further consultations and/or additional regulations fleshing out the detail.
So, although the Bill may receive Royal Assent during 2025, many provisions are unlikely to come into force until 2026.
There are some other things happening too in 2025, so let’s dive in…
The so-called ‘biggest upgrade to rights at work for a generation’ runs to more than 150 pages and contains 28 employment measures.
So yes, there’s a lot to it.
The Bill’s committee stage began on 26 November 2024 and is expected to run until 21 January 2025.
There may be further amendments and there is definitely more detail to come in the form of further regulations (as yet undrafted). But here’s a brief overview of where we are at present on the key points:
‘Day 1’ unfair dismissal rights
Political soundbites seldom make for good law.
Let’s be real - the much-vaunted promise of ‘day 1 unfair dismissal rights’ was never going to be practicable: employers will always need some probation-type period to assess a new hire.
The new government could have increased dismissal protection at the stroke of a pen by tweaking s.108 of the Employment Rights Act 1996 (‘ERA 1996’) - to change the current qualifying period from 2 years to a shorter period.
That could have been 1 year (as it was under the previous Labour government), 9 months, 6 months, or whatever period took the government’s fancy…
Dead simple. No need for any new law, concepts, or processes - and millions more people granted increased dismissal protection almost immediately.
But that would not quite have kept the headline-grabbing promise. So instead, we are now firmly in fudge territory.
So where are we exactly?
Yes, the current qualifying period will be removed. But it will be replaced with a statutory probationary period, referred to as an ‘initial period of employment’.
And if an employer wishes to dismiss during that period there will be a brand new procedure to follow. So employees in their probationary period will have more protection than they do presently - but not quite ‘full-fat’ unfair dismissal protection.
More a kind of ‘unfair dismissal light’ - with the government’s aim being to ‘ensure the probation period has meaningful safeguards to provide stability and security for business and workers’.
Subject to further developments?
Yes, a consultation on both the duration of the initial statutory probation period (somewhere between 3 and 9 months) and the dismissal process that will apply during that period.
So change is still some way off and unlikely to come into force in 2025…
Flexible working
The statutory procedure for flexible working requests will stay largely the same, save for:
Subject to further developments? Yes, new regulations will be required on steps that an employer must take in order to comply with the consultation requirements.
The Government’s ‘Next Steps to Make Work Pay’ document says it ‘will develop the detail of the approach in consultation and partnership with business, trade union and third sector bodies’.
Again, any change seems a way off…
Increased protection for zero hours workers
The Bill proposes a new right for a ‘qualifying worker’ (someone engaged under a zero hours or 'low hours' contract) to be:
Subject to further developments? Yes, a consultation on:
A ban on fire and rehire practices except in limited circumstances
Another catchy soundbite that’s trickier to implement in practice.
The Bill proposes that it will be automatically unfair (and unlawful) to dismiss an employee:
Ok, so what’s the statutory exemption?
That will apply if the employer can show that the reason for the variation was to eliminate, prevent, significantly reduce the effects of financial difficulties which, at the time of the dismissal, were affecting the employer’s ability to carry on the business - and that in all the circumstances the employer could not have reasonably avoided the need to make the variation.
Quite a high bar then.
Subject to further developments? Yes, both a consultation and new regulations will be required. So again, change could be some way off.
Collective redundancy
Clause 23 of the Bill removes references to one ‘establishment’ from relevant legislation. So the obligation to consult collectively will be triggered where the employer is proposing to make 20 or more employees redundant within a rolling 90-day period (regardless of the ‘establishment’ at which the redundancies are proposed).
Subject to further developments? No.
Statutory sick pay ('SSP') to become a ‘day 1’ right and lowering of the lower weekly earnings limit
Clause 8 and 9 of the Bill propose the removal of:
Subject to further developments? Yes, a consultation on the percentage replacement rate for those earning below the current rate of SSP.
Parental leave and paternity leave to become ‘day 1’ rights
Clauses 11 and 12 of the Bill amend the ERA 1996 to remove provisions relating to the duration an employee must be employed before being entitled to be absent from work:
Subject to further developments? No.
Extension of bereavement leave to any ‘bereaved person’ (not just the death of a child)
Clause 14 of Bill amends the ERA 1996 to provide an entitlement to bereavement leave of at least one week.
The Bill also provides for regulations to create a new entitlement for protected time off for bereaved employees, in addition to existing provision for parental bereavement leave.
A ‘bereaved person’ will be defined in regulations by reference to the employee’s relationship with the person who has died.
Subject to further developments? Yes, new regulations will be required.
Increased dismissal protection during pregnancy and for a period thereafter
Clauses 20 and 21 of the Bill provide for further protection against dismissal or redundancy during pregnancy and for a period thereafter. But they are enabling provisions only - meaning the devil will be in detailed regulations and they will follow.
Subject to further developments? Yes, new regulations will be required.
Employer’s duty to prevent sexual harassment
Clauses 15 and 17 amend the (relatively new) duty on employers to prevent sexual harassment of employees, by extending the existing ‘reasonable steps’ requirement to ‘all reasonable steps’.
The Bill also enables further regulations to specify what those steps are and the matters employers must consider in order to discharge the duty.
Subject to further developments? Yes, further regulations will be required setting out the prescribed steps employers must take.
There are some other noteworthy changes:
Subject to further developments? No.
Equality Action Plans
Clause 26 provides a new requirement for large employers to publish equality action plans showing the steps that an employer is taking in relation to certain matters related to gender equality (and to publish prescribed information relating to those plans).
‘Gender equality’ includes addressing the gender pay gap and supporting employees going through menopause. Proposed amendments to the Bill would add ‘supporting employees with menstrual problems and menstrual disorders’ to the definition of ‘matters related to gender equality’.
Subject to further developments? Yes, new regulations will be required.
Structural reform
A key element of the Bill is the establishment of a Fair Work Agency. This new agency will have the power to enforce certain employment rights, investigate complaints, and promote good workplace practices.
The aim is to bring together existing enforcement functions including those relating to employment agencies and employment businesses, the unpaid Employment Tribunal award penalty scheme, enforcement of the National Minimum Wage, and statutory sick pay.
Subject to further developments? Yes, in November 2024 an open call for evidence was launched aimed at establishing what existing agencies need to do to prepare for the transition to the Fair Work Agency.
There is a lot more to the Bill, including, substantial changes to trade union rights, changes to tips and gratuities law, and a new proposal (added during the committee stage on 27 November 2024) extending the time limit for bringing Employment Tribunal claims from three months to six months.
But that is probably more than enough for now.
We’ve been told this is coming, but the draft Equality (Race and Disability) Bill 2024 has not been published yet. So the content of the Bill is unknown, but the following detail is expected:
The government has said consultation on this legislation will begin in due course, with the draft Bill due during the current parliamentary session.
And finally, some other bits and pieces to be mindful of:
So there’s a lot going on. Hopefully this summary will help you stay ahead of it…
