Employment Rights Bill Timeline

The Government publishes 4 consultations on the Bill dealing with industrial relations, collective redundancy and fire and rehire, zero hours contracts and agency workers and statutory sick pay.

An amendment paper is published, listing all amendments tabled to the Bill. The most important one would extend the time limit for bringing tribunal claims from 3 to 6 months.

Recent Articles

• Amendments to the Employment Rights Bill
• The Employment Rights Bill - Key Considerations for Employers

• Modernising the legislative framework that underpins trade unions
• Strengthening remedies against abuse of rules on collective redundancy and fire and rehire (i.e. introducing interim relief claims in protective award and fire and rehire cases).
• The application of the zero hours contracts measures in the Bill to agency workers

The Department for Work and Pensions is consulting on making changes to Statutory Sick Pay.

Commons Committee Stage completes and the Committee approves all of the Government’s amendments.

Recent Articles

• Employment Rights Bill One Step Closer to Becoming Law

The Government publishes its responses to the 4 consultations on the Bill that closed in December 2024.

Recent Articles

• Government to Amend Employment Rights Bill to Apply to Agency Workers
• Government Introduces Series of Amendments to Employment Rights Bill

The Government publishes a large number of amendments to the Bill for consideration at the report stage.

Recent Article

• Government Set to Abandon Plans for Tight to 'Switch Off' Outside Work Hours

Commons report stage and third reading of the Bill.

The Bill is introduced in the House of Lords and has its first reading.

The Bill is introduced in The Bill has its second reading in the House of Lords.

Government amendments to the Bill are published for consideration at the House of Lords Committee stage.

The Committee Stage in the House of Lords begins.

Recent Article

• Employment Rights Bill: Ban on Fire and Rehire?

The Committee Stage in the House of Lords comes to an end.

Recent Article

• Employment Rights Bill... One Step Closer

The Government has published an ‘implementation roadmap’ for the Employment Rights Bill. It highlights that significant changes will arrive from as soon as April next year.

Recent Article

• Government Publishes 'Roadmap' for Employment Rights Bill
• Employment Rights Bill Update

Consultation due to take place on day 1 unfair dismissal rights, fair pay agreement for the Adult Social Care Sector and reinstating the school support staff negotiating body.

Consultation due to take place on Trade Union measures (e.g. balloting, simplifying trade union recognition, duty to inform staff of right to join a trade union), fire and rehire and regulating umbrella companies, bereavement leave, rights to pregnant workers and ending the use of exploitative zero hours contracts.

The House of Lords made various amendments that were rejected by the House of Commons. The House of Commons considered the latest amendments from the Lords on 5 November 2025. The bill is expected to be given Royal Assent in November 2025 but most of the changes the Bill introduces will need to be implemented by secondary legislation or regulations.

Recent Article

• Latest Update to the Employment Rights Bill

Some notable changes since the Bill was first introduced include:

• Fire and Rehire - this is where a employee is dismissed for refusing to agree to change terms of employment, and the employer offers to rehire them on those new terms. This practice was initially completely outlawed unless not doing it would result in a company collapsing. It is now proposed that there will be a distinction between ‘restricted’ and ‘non-restricted’ contract variations and only dismissal as a result of an employee’s refusal to accept ‘restricted changes’ (i.e. reduced pay, time off hours) will result in automatic dismissal liability.
• Collective Redundancy Consultation- currently collective redundancy regime is triggered if an employer is proposing to dismiss as redundant 20 or more employees at one establishment within 90 days. The Bill originally proposed to abolish the ‘one establishment’ rule so that employers would have to aggregate numbers of affected employees across an entire organisation, rather than a single workplace. It is now proposed that the ‘one establishment’ test will remain but there will be a further threshold test which is yet to be determined.
• NDAs- there is a proposal for there to be tighter controls on the use of NDAs for discrimination and harassment. The aim is to shift the balance of power to put workers in control of confidentiality, rather than having it imposed on them.
• The ACAS Early Conciliation window will increase from six to twelve weeks from 1 December 2025.

Recent Articles

• Ban on NDAs Covering Harassment and Discrimination in the Workplace
• ACAS Early Conciliation Window to be Extended From Six Weeks to Twelve Weeks

The Bill returned to the House of Commons on 5 November and Royal Assent is expected in November 2025. Some measures will take effect shortly after Royal Assent, including repealing most of the Conservative Government’s trade union and strike minimum service laws and introducing protections against dismissal for taking industrial action. However, for the majority of the reforms this is just the beginning and a variety of consultation is expected to follow.

Consultation due to take place on trade union measures (e.g. protections against detriment for taking industrial action and blacklisting), tightening tipping law, collective redundancy and flexible working.

The following measures are due to take effect in April 2026 -

• Collective redundancy protective award to double to 180 days, rather than 90 days as currently
• Day 1 paternity leave and unpaid parental leave
• Enhanced whistleblower protections for making sexual harassment complaint
• Establish Fair Work Agency
• Removal of the 3 day waiting period and the lower earnings limit for SSP
• Equality Action plans become voluntary
• Simplifying trade union recognition process and enable electronic and workplace balloting for trade unions

The following measures are due to take effect in October 2026 -

• Fire and rehire
• Requiring employers to take all reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment and introducing obligation to prevent third party harassment (on the grounds of any protected characteristic).
• Establish the Fair Pay Agreement Adult Social Care Negotiating Body
• Tightening tipping law
• Duty to inform workers of their right to join a trade union and strengthen trade union rights of access
• New rights and protections for trade union reps
• Extending protection against detriment for taking industrial action
• Employment Tribunal time limits increased from 3 to 6 months

The following measures are due to take effect in December 2026 -

• Commencement of the Mandatory Seafarers Charter (establishes legally binding standards for those employing seafaring staff)

The following measures are not expected to take effect until 2027 -

• Day 1 right to unfair dismissal
• Equality Action plans become compulsory
• Enhanced dismissal protection for pregnant women and new mothers
• New power to enable regulations to specify steps that are to be regarded as reasonable to determine whether an employer has taken all reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment introduced.
• Ending the use of “exploitative zero hour contracts” and applying zero hour contract measures to agency workers.
• Flexible working (refusal of a request must be reasonable)
• Bereavement leave ( day 1 right to 1 weeks leave)
• Extension of blacklisting protection
• Regulation of umbrella companies
• Collective redundancy consultation threshold