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10 October 2024
Employment Rights Bill published
10 October 2024
  • Exploitative use of zero hours contracts ended

  • Day-one right protection from unfair dismissal introduced

  • New collective redundancy consultation threshold introduced

  • Gender pay gap and menopause action plans  

  • New rights for pregnant workers

  • Flexible working changes

  • Bereavement leave introduced

2027
  • Fire and rehire restrictions introduced

  • Duty to inform workers of their right to join a trade union introduced

  • Employers required to take “all reasonable steps” to prevent sexual harassment of their employees and third-party harassment prohibited

  • New rights and protections for trade union representatives introduced

  • Employment Tribunal time limits extended

October 2026
  • Collective redundancy protective award maximum period doubled

  • Day-one paternity leave and unpaid parental leave introduced

  • Fair Work Agency established

  • Statutory Sick Pay lower earnings limit and waiting period removed

  • Trade union recognition process simplified

April 2026
  • It is possible that the Employment Rights Bill might receive Royal Assent, one year after it was published

  • On the day the Bill receives Royal Assent, the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act 2023 will be repealed in its entirety

October 2025
  • Collective redundancy

  • Flexible working

Winter/early 2026 consultations include:
  • A package of trade union measures including electronic balloting and workplace balloting and simplifying trade union recognition processes

  • Fire and rehire

  • Bereavement leave

  • Rights for pregnant workers

  • Ending the exploitative use of zero hours contracts

Autumn 2025 consultations include:

Giving employees protection from unfair dismissal from day-one, including on the dismissal process in the statutory probation period

Summer/Autumn 2025 consultations include:

Following conclusion of the first round of debates in the House of Commons, debates commence in the House of Lords

14 March 2025

Government response to consultations on:

  • Strengthening statutory sick pay

  • Strengthening remedies against abuse of rules on collective redundancy and fire and rehire

  • The application of zero hours contracts measures to agency workers

  • Creating a modern framework for industrial relations

4 March 2025