If you are a UK HR professional, unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ll know that the Employment Rights Bill is currently making its way through Parliament. The Bill is now in its final stages in the House of Lords and is expected to receive Royal Assent in Autumn 2025.

Dubbed ‘the biggest change to workers’ rights in a generation’ by the government, the Employment Rights Bill was first introduced last October, meeting their election pledge to introduce changes within 100 days of coming into office. However, this version was by no means the finished article, and a lot has happened since then.

Following several public consultations and many committee meetings, over 260 amendments to the Employment Rights Bill have been tabled. These were then discussed and voted on by committee members, to reshape the Bill as it made its way through in the Commons and the Lords.

Key Employment Rights Bill updates (July 2025)

There’s still a way to go until the Bill become law, so some amendments may not make it into the final version, but here are just some of the latest updates and what they will mean for businesses…

Extending zero-hour contract protections

One of the biggest changes is the extension of the zero-hour contract protections that were already contained within the Bill to cover agency workers. Whilst the Commons hoped to make it compulsory for employers to offer guaranteed-hours contracts to zero-hours workers, the House of Lords’ latest amendment seeks to implement a ‘right to request’, rather than the employer having to offer. The amendments also include the right to compensation where shifts are changed or cancelled without reasonable notice.

Statutory sick pay

Under the current iteration of the Bill, statutory sick pay will be available to all workers regardless of earnings. It will be paid at a rate of either 80% of weekly earnings, or the flat rate of £118.75 per week, whichever is lower, from the first day of sickness. This will increase the cost of absence for businesses with workers who were previously not paid for sickness.

Maximum protective award

Another amendment saw the maximum competition that a tribunal can award double, increasing from 90 days of gross pay to 180 days, where a business has failed to correctly consult in large redundancy or fire and rehire processes.

Enhanced Trade Union rights

There have been several amendments to the Bill that will offer trade unions enhanced rights. One major change is the introduction of a framework whereby trade unions can request an ‘access agreement’ with an employer. If granted, the union is permitted access to the workplace to meet, represent, recruit or organise workers and to facilitate collective bargaining.

The Bill also aims to simplify the statutory recognition process by lowering the membership threshold for the proposed bargaining unit to between 2% and 10%. It also sets out to remove the requirement that the union must get the support of 50% of voters, which in turn must represent 40% of the total workforce.

Fair Work Agency

The Employment Rights Bill now includes reference to a new regulatory body, the Fair Work Agency, that will have the powers to bring an employment tribunal claim on behalf of an individual who is unable or unwilling to do so themselves.

Where an individual has started proceedings, the agency will be able to provide legal support, assistance, or representation. This new agency will also be granted the powers to enforce the payment of statutory payments to employees, having the ability to recover owed money quicker than through the tribunal process.

Bereavement leave

In the original Bill, the government laid out plans to introduce bereavement leave as a statutory right, which would subsume the existing right to parental bereavement leave. It was then amended to extend the parental bereavement element to miscarriages before 24 weeks of pregnancy.

Since then, the Government have rejected this and instead proposed to extend the right to unpaid bereavement leave already included in the Bill to cover pre-24-week pregnancy losses.

‘Fire and rehire’

The ‘fire and rehire’ restrictions in the Bill, which make it automatically unfair to dismiss an employee for failing to agree to varied terms unless in specific financial circumstances, have been amended to now only apply to certain restricted variations. These include changes to pay or other monetary entitlements, bonus or other performance-based payments, pensions, total hours worked, shift timings, and annual leave allowances. This means that employers may be able to make changes to work location, such as enforcing return-to-office mandates. However, there is a provision that additional types of variation can be added to the restricted list in later regulations.

Non-disclosure agreements

Another late-stage amendment to the Bill states that any clause in a contract (including settlement agreements) that attempts to force confidentiality or prevent a worker from making allegations of harassment or discrimination will be considered void.

Replacing employees with agency workers or other non-employees

Under proposed amendments employees will be deemed to be unfairly dismissed if they are made redundant with the main reason being to replace them with an individual who is not an employee. This includes agency workers or other contractors who are carrying out the same duties and activities.

Unfair dismissal

Most recently, the House of Lords has proposed an amendment that would reduce the qualifying period for unfair dismissal from two years to six months. Despite this sounding like a significant reduction, this completely goes against Labour’s manifesto commitment to give all workers day one unfair dismissal rights.

Employment Rights Bill: More changes could come

Of course, the Employment Rights Bill is still going through the legislative process. Therefore, we cannot be certain that that all, or any, of these updates will be in the final legislation. 

The government has also published expected implementation dates for some of the measures outlined in the Bill. Cited as a ‘roadmap for delivering change’, the document sets out the Government’s “initial view” of the point at which key policy areas will change, with some of the most important changes beginning from April 2026.

Whilst it remains to be seen whether the Government does in fact stick to its own timetable, this gives a strong indication that the measure outlined with be included in the final version of the Bill.

We can expect to see a significant rise in the number of employment tribunal claims being brought once these changes come into law, so it’s more important than ever for businesses to ensure they are across all potential changes, updating policies and contracts as needed to ensure they remain fully compliant.

Originally published 9 April 2025, last updated 28th July 2025.