Nov 24
On 10 October 2024, the government introduced the Employment Rights Bill into Parliament. The Bill sets out the biggest change to employment rights in decades. Whilst the majority of the reforms will not take effect until 2026, we set out below some of the key reforms in order to be prepared.
Unfair dismissal |
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| Current position | The right to bring a claim for unfair dismissal is available only to employees who, (in most cases) have a qualifying period of service, which is currently 2 years. |
| Bill | Removes the qualifying period and therefore unfair dismissal protection will become a “day one” right for all employees (workers are still excluded). However, the Bill allows employers to operate a statutory probationary period, and 9 months is being proposed, during which there will be a lighter-touch process for employers to follow to dismiss employees (except for redundancies). |
| Impact | More employees will have unfair dismissal rights and therefore this could lead to more claims so a careful monitoring of employees during their probationary periods will be required. |
Flexible working |
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| Current position | Employees have a “day one” right to make up to two requests in any 12-month period for flexible working. Employers must deal with the request in a reasonable manner (rather than make a reasonable decision) and they can only refuse a request for one (or more) of the eight permitted reasons as set out in the legislation. |
| Bill | Employers will have a duty to explain the grounds for refusing the request (using the same eight reasons) and to explain why it considers that the decision to refuse the request on that ground is reasonable. |
| Impact | Employers will need to give a clearer explanation of the reasons for refusing a request. |
Statutory sick pay |
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| Current position | To qualify for SSP, employees must be earning at or above the lower earnings limit, currently £123 a week. Those that are eligible are only paid from their fourth day of sickness absence (days one to three are unpaid). |
| Bill | SSP will be payable from the first day of an employee’s absence. The lower earnings limit will be removed but for those earning below the lower earnings limit, their rate of SSP will be a percentage of their earnings or a flat rate of £116.75, whichever is lower. |
| Impact | Important change as all employees will be entitled to SSP from day one. Careful monitoring of sickness absences will be required. |
Zero hours |
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| Current position | Employers can use zero hours contracts to engage a worker on an ad hoc basis with no guarantee of work from the business. |
| Bill | Employers will be required to offer qualifying workers guaranteed hours reflecting the hours they have worked during a reference period, which is anticipated to be 12 weeks. In addition, employers will be required to provide workers with reasonable notice of shifts and changes to these. Further, employers will be required to make payments to workers if they cancel, move or curtail a shift at short notice. Agency workers are currently excluded. |
| Impact | The finer details are currently unclear but these changes could be burdensome, especially for small businesses. |
Fire and rehire |
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| Current position | Employers can change employment terms and conditions by way of dismissing employees, who typically do not agree to the changes, and re-engaging them on new terms. There is a Code of Practice on dismissal and re-engagement. |
| Bill | It will be automatically unfair to dismiss an employee for refusing to agree to a change in their contract of employment, to replace employees or to re-engage them on varied contractual terms. An exception will be made where the employer is in significant financial difficulties. |
| Impact | Any proposed changes to employment terms will need careful consideration. |
Redundancies |
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| Current position | Where an employer proposes to make large-scale redundancies of 20 or more employees at one establishment within a period of 90 days or less, it must consult on its proposal with representatives of the affected employees and notify the Secretary of State. |
| Bill | The reference to ‘one establishment’ is being removed so that when deciding whether there are 20 or more proposed redundancies, the number of redundancies across the whole business should be taken into account (and not just those at individual sites or branches). |
| Impact | It is likely that more collective redundancy consultation will be required which can be onerous for employers. |
Harassment |
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| Current position | The Worker Protection (Amendment to the Equality Act 2010) Act 2023 came into force on 26 October 2024. This legislation requires employers to take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment of their employees. While the Act does not provide for an employee to bring a standalone claim for third party harassment, an employer’s preventative duty extends to sexual harassment by third parties as a result of the EHRC’s guidance. |
| Bill | There will be a wider duty on employers to take all reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment of its employees by other employees and by third parties. Sexual harassment will also become a protected disclosure. |
| Impact | Employers will need to proactively take all reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment by employees and third parties. |
Family leave |
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| Current position | Employees with 26 weeks’ continuous service are entitled to take up to two weeks of paternity leave and employees with not less than 1 years’ continuous service are entitled to (unpaid) parental leave of up to 18 weeks for each child. |
| Bill | Removes the qualifying period and therefore they will become day-one rights. |
| Impact | More employees will be entitled to these types of leave. |
Bereavement |
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| Current position | There is currently no entitlement to bereavement leave following a death except parents are entitled to parental bereavement leave of up to 2 weeks for the loss of a child under the age of 18. |
| Bill | Bereavement leave will become a day-one right, applying to the loss of a wider group of persons (and not just a child). |
| Impact | More employees will be entitled to take time off work following a death. |
Statement |
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| Current position | Employers must provide workers with a written statement of employment particulars. |
| Bill | New requirement that employers provide workers with a written statement of their right to join a trade union. |
| Impact | The specific details of the form and content of this statement to be confirmed. |
If you would like to discuss information in this briefing, please contact one of our specialists in the employment team at Raworths on 01423 566666
Sally Togher, Head of Employment, Liz Pollock, Senior Associate and Harjeet Nangla, Senior Associate.
Published on 21 November 2024
The information and any commentary contained in this briefing is for general information purposes only and does not constitute legal or any other type of professional advice.
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