Employment Rights Act Timeline

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The Employment Rights Act, which received Royal Assent on 18 December 2025, has been described as the biggest upgrade to workers’ rights for a generation. The Act was subject to extensive debate throughout its Parliamentary passage until the House of Lords finally conceded to the amendments proposed by the House of Commons. Our Employment Team have created a timeline so you can see how the Act has evolved.

10 October 2024 - The Bill is presented to the House of Commons

The Bill is presented to the House of Commons and has its first reading. The Government publishes ‘Next Steps to Make Work Pay’ setting out how it will deliver its plan to make work pay.

21 October 2024 - The Bill has its second reading in the House of Commons

21 October 2024 - The Government publishes 4 consultations on the Bill

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.

26 November 2024 - House of Commons Committee Stage

27 November 2024 - An amendment paper is published

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.

2 December 2024 - The Department for Business & Trade is consulting on:

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

4 December 2024 - The Department for Work and Pensions consult on Statutory Sick Pay

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

16 January 2025 - Commons Committee Stage completes

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

4 March 2025 - The Government publishes its responses to the 4 consultations on the Bill

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

4 & 5 March 2025 - The Government publishes a large number of amendments to the Bill

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

11 & 12 March 2025 - Commons report stage

Commons report stage and third reading of the Bill.

14 March 2025 - First Reading

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

27 March 2025 - Second Reading

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

23 April 2025 - Amendment Paper

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

29 April 2025 - House of Lords Committee Stage

The Committee Stage in the House of Lords begins.

25 June 2025 - Finished Committee Stage

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

July 2025 - Government plan to implement the Employment Rights Bill

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.

14 July 2025 - Lords Report Stage

Summer/Autumn 2025 - Further Consultation

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.

Autumn 2025 - Further Consultation

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.

Ping Pong Stage

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.

There have been some key changes since the Bill was introduced in October

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.

December 2025 - Major U-Turn on Unfair Dismissal Protection

On 28 November 2025, Prime Minister Sir Kier Starmer announced a major U-turn scrapping proposals to make unfair dismissal protection a right from the first day of employment.

The Government had planned to make unfair dismissal protection a day 1 right, subject to a ‘light touch’ initial period of employment. This proposal had faced significant challenge in the House of Lords who had proposed scrapping the light touch regime in favour of simply reducing the qualifying period for unfair dismissal to 6 months. The Government had rejected this proposal twice but finally relented in order to help smooth the passage of the Employment Rights Bill.

On 5 December 2025, the Government published its latest amendments to the Employment Rights Bill and confirmed the proposal to reduce the qualifying period of service an employee needs to bring an unfair dismissal claim from 2 years to 6 months. It also proposed removing the cap on unfair dismissal compensation.

16 December 2025 - Employment Rights Bill is passed

The Bill has been passed by Parliament. Alongside passing the Bill, the Government committed to publishing an impact assessment on the impact of removing the unfair dismissal compensation cap before implementing the unfair dismissal sections of the new Act.

18 December 2025 - The Employment Rights Act 2025 receives Royal Assent

The Employment Rights Bill has received Royal Assent and is now the Employment Rights Act 2025.

The only substantive provision that comes into force immediately is the repeal of the provisions introduced by the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act 2023. Implementation of many of the Act’s provisions will be staggered over the upcoming months and years with much of the detail to be determined through further consultation.