NEW Employment Rights Bill published
Key changes
Here are some of the key points from the Bill:
Unfair dismissal: Removal of 2 year qualifying period. We are told in the press release that there will be a consultation on different rules during a probationary period. It is not clear what this means, although it is likely that there will be an exemption or relaxation of the rules in the first 9 months.
Fire and Re-hire: It will be automatically unfair to dismiss an employee for refusing a contract variation. There is a very limited exception where an employer has a genuine need to avoid serious financial issues that may threaten the business, provided that there has been extensive consultation first.
Zero hours contracts: New protections include a guaranteed hours provision, the right to reasonable notice of a shift and payment for cancellation of shifts at short notice.
Flexible working: Any refusal of a flexible working request has to be reasonable, from a list of specified grounds for refusal. These are similar to the previous grounds, although the reasonableness requirement is new. There is also a requirement for the employer to explain why their refusal is reasonable in writing to the employee. There is no change to the penalty for breach (8 weeks' pay).
Statutory sick pay: This will start from day 1 of employment.
Bereavement leave: This will be available for all employees, not just for parents.
Harassment: Employers will have full liability for third party harassment.
Whistleblowing: Allegations of sexual harassment will now automatically be covered under the whistleblowing legislation as protected disclosures.
Collective redundancy consultation: It will now be necessary to count redundancies across the whole business, rather than just at one establishment when assessing 20 or more are proposed.
Equality action plan: Regulations may require employers with over 250 employees to produce action plans on gender equality.
Collective bargaining: There are provisions for introducing sector wide collective bargaining for school support staff and adult social care workers.
Section 1 statements must include statements of union rights.
Next steps
The Leader of the House of Commons has announced the second reading of the Employment Rights Bill will be on 21 October 2024. The second reading is normally the main debate on a Bill.
The Government has also published a ‘Next Steps’ document (see here) to outline reforms that it will look to implement in the future. Subject to consultation, these will include:
a ‘right to switch off’, preventing employees from being contacted out of hours, except in exceptional circumstances;
a commitment to end pay discrimination by expanding the Equality (Race and Disparity) Bill, which was announced in the King’s Speech on 17 July 2024, to make it mandatory for large employers to report their ethnicity and disability pay gap;
a move towards a single status of worker and transition towards a simpler two-part framework for employment status;
reviews of the parental leave and carers leave systems.
Commencement date
We don't know the commencement date for the draft legislation yet. According to the BBC this morning, it is rumoured to be October 2026, but this is not confirmed.
Once the consultation document (covering amongst others the rules on probationary periods) has been published, we will send out a further update.