July 2025 Employment Law Update

This month’s employment law update will focus on the Employment Rights Bill as the UK government have recently released the roadmap for a phased introduction of legislation. The roadmap aims to raise living standards across the country whilst giving employers and workers the time to adapt.

The Employment Rights Bill is part of the government’s Plan to Make Work Pay which has been developed in collaboration with businesses and trade unions as a commitment to grow the economy. The aim of the bill is to improve job security, fairness, protections for workers, modernising trade union laws and enforcement of employment rights. As an overview, the Bill covers:

Addressing one sided flexibility

• End exploitative zero-hour contracts by introducing guaranteed hours, reasonable notice and payment for short notice cancellations.

• End fire and rehire practices by making dismissals for refusing contract changes automatically unfair, except where businesses have no alternative.

• Remove the two-year qualifying period for unfair dismissal claims to become a day one right alongside a new statutory probationary period.

• Strengthen collective redundancy rights.

Ensuring fair pay for a fair day’s work

• Strengthen statutory sick pay.

• Strengthen existing tipping laws.

• Re-introduce a two-tier code on workforce matters ensuring that employees from the private sector working on outsourced contracts will be offered terms and conditions broadly comparable to those transferred from the public sector.

Supporting family friendly rights

• Make paternity leave and unpaid parental leave available as a day one right.

• Enable parents to take their paternity leave and pay after their shared parental leave and pay.

• Introduce new right to unpaid bereavement leave, allowing employees to take leave from work to grieve the loss of a loved one.

• Introduce new protections against dismissal for pregnant women, mothers on maternity leave and mothers who return to work for a six-month period.

• Strengthen the existing right to request flexible working.

Prioritising fairness, equality and wellbeing

• Strengthen duties on employers to take ‘reasonable steps’ to prevent sexual harassment of employees.

• Introduce an obligation on employers to not permit harassment of their employees by third parties.

• Strengthen protections for whistleblowers.

• Motivate employers to improve gender equality by requiring relevant employers to produce action plans to set out how they are addressing the gender pay gap and supporting employees going through the menopause.

Modernising trade union legislation

• Real the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act 2023.

• Introduce new rights and protections for trade union representatives.

• Provide protection from detriment on the grounds of industrial action.

Improve enforcement of employment rights

• Establish the Fair Work Agency to unify enforcement of employment laws, investigate labour abuses, issue penalties and represent workers in tribunals.

• Increase the time limit within which employees are able to make an Employment Tribunal claim from three months to six months.

As you might have seen in the news, the government have released a roadmap for a phased introduction of legislation. Key measures in the Bill will come into effect in 2026 and 2027, whilst further consultations are planned from this year into the next.

Roadmap

After the Bill is passed

• Immediate repeal of the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act 2023 and the majority of the Trade Union Act 2016 to create a better relationship with unions that will prevent the need for strikes.

• Protections against dismissal for taking industrial action to ensure workers can defend their rights without fear of losing their jobs.

April 2026

• Collective redundancy protective award – doubling the maximum period of the protective award to provide stronger financial security for workers facing mass redundancies.

• ‘Day one’ paternity leave and unpaid parental leave to support working families from the very start of employment.

• Whistleblowing protections to encourage reporting of wrongdoing without fear of retaliation

• Fair work agency launched to enforce labour rights and promote fairness in the workplace.

• Statutory sick pay – removing the lower earnings limit and waiting period.

• A package of trade union measures including simplifying trade union recognition process and electronic and workplace balloting to strengthen democracy and participation in the workplace.

October 2026

• Ending unscrupulous fire and rehire practices to protect workers from being forced into worse terms under threat of dismissal.

• Regulations to establish the fair pay agreement adult social care negotiating body in England to raise standards and pay in the social care sector.

• Tightening tipping law - strengthen the law on tipping by mandating consultation with workers to ensure fairer tip allocation. 

• Requiring employers to take “all reasonable steps” to prevent sexual harassment of their employees to create safer, more respectful workplaces. 

• Introducing an obligation on employers not to permit the harassment of their employees by third parties to extend protections to all work environments, including public-facing roles. 

• A package of trade union measures including new rights and protections for trade union representatives, extending protections against detriments for taking industrial action and strengthening trade unions’ right of access. 

2027

• Gender pay gap and menopause action plans (introduced on a voluntary basis in April 2026) to promote gender equality and support women’s health in the workplace. 

• Enhanced dismissal protections for pregnant women and new mothers to safeguard job security during pregnancy, maternity leave and a return-to-work period. 

• Further harassment protections, specifying reasonable steps which will help determine whether an employer has taken all reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment to provide clearer guidance and stronger enforcement against harassment. 

• Creating a modern framework for industrial relations to build a fairer, more collaborative approach to workplace relations. 

• Bereavement leave to give workers time to grieve with job security. 

• Ending the exploitative use of zero hours contracts to provide workers with stable hours and predictable income. 

• ‘Day 1’ right to protection from unfair dismissal to ensure all workers are treated fairly from the start of employment. 

• Improving access to flexible working to help people balance work with family, health, and other responsibilities. 

  
  

  If you would like any support on any of the topics mentioned above, please contact any member of the team and we will be happy to help.