Category: Newsletters

The Employment Rights Bill was published on 10 October 2024 (see our blogs on this here and here). On 27 November 2024, the Government published an amendment paper which contained further proposed changes (which we updated you on here).

The Government published further amendments to the Bill on 4 March 2025 (following its responses to its consultations) which we summarised for you in our blog.

Since then the Bill has passed its second reading in the House of Lords (on 27 March) and the Committee stage (line by line examination of the bill) begins on 29 April.

Further consultations on other reforms are due later this year and, as much of the detail will only be addressed in secondary legislation, the Bill will continue evolving for some time to come. Watch this space for further changes…

In the meantime, here’s a reminder (and some further detail) of the latest changes and consultation responses.

Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) Changes: The Bill already proposes removing the four-day waiting period for SSP so that it becomes payable from day one of sickness absence. A new amendment (and regulations) now confirms that the lower earnings limit for SSP eligibility will be also be removed. The upshot is that all employees will be entitled to receive pay from day 1 of sickness absence (regardless of how much they earn). However, employees will only be entitled to 80% of their average weekly earnings or the statutory SSP rate  – whichever is lower. Therefore the lowest earners will still not be entitled to the full SSP rate (which is currently £118.75 per week). 

Guaranteed hours and Agency Workers: One of the most important provisions of the Bill is the obligation to offer zero-hours workers (and low-hours workers) guaranteed hours if they have worked, on average, a certain number of hours over a reference period (still to be determined).

The Bill now extends these protections to agency workers (if they otherwise qualify as a zero/low-hours worker). The responsibility for offering these guaranteed hours will mainly fall on the end client (as opposed to the employment business/agency) with some exceptions to be clarified later. But both the agency and end client must provide reasonable notice for shift changes, cancellations, or adjustments. If shifts are cancelled at short notice, agencies must compensate workers (but may recover costs from their end client if they were responsible and the contract allows for it).

The other significant change to the Bill is to allow employers and unions to negotiate alternatives to guaranteed hours through collective agreements. But this does need to be agreed by an employer and a union and it remains to be seen how far unions are willing to engage in this process.

Also, employers will be able to offer temporary contracts (and avoid the need to make a guaranteed hours offer) where there is a genuine temporary work need (to be clarified in further regulations).

Collective Redundancy: Originally the Bill suggested that redundancy consultations would be required when 20 or more roles were cut across an organisation, even if individual sites had fewer redundancies. However, employers were concerned about the extra administrative burden. Therefore the Government has now reinstated the ‘at one establishment’ rule, meaning consultations are generally triggered only when 20 or more redundancies occur at a single location. That said, the Bill introduces an additional provision allowing regulations to set a higher threshold (above 20) for situations where redundancies are taking place across an organisation.

The Bill has also been amended to state that, in carrying out collective consultation, the employer does not need to consult all employee representatives together or try to reach the same agreement with all of the representatives (who could be from local unconnected offices).

However, employers face tougher consequences for non-compliance with collective redundancy rules. The maximum protective award will increase from 90 days’ pay to 180 days’ pay.

Fire and rehire: The Government is pressing ahead with its plans to outlaw the practice of ‘fire and rehire’ (i.e. dismissal and re-engagement) except when an employer is on the brink of bankruptcy. It will gather feedback on how to strengthen these rules and use this to update the Code of Practice on Dismissal and Re-engagement.

However, in better news for employers, interim relief (continuation of the employment contract and pay before a tribunal hearing) won’t be available for employees claiming unfair dismissal in dismissal and re-engagement cases or for breach of collective redundancy rules (as it had previously been suggested).