The Employment Rights Bill was published on 10 October 2024. It covers a wide-range of employment relations areas, some changes are significant, others less so. Here are 8 we think are important to you:
New rights from Day One of employment
1. Right to claim ordinary unfair dismissal
All employees will have the right to claim ordinary unfair dismissal. There are still some details to be decided – for example, different rules may apply for conduct and capability dismissals and lower compensation may be relevant during the early period of employment (currently suggested at 9 months).
2. Parental leave and paternity leave
Employees will be immediately eligible for parental leave (18 weeks unpaid leave per child) and paternity leave (up to 2 weeks of leave following the arrival of a child).
Other important changes
3. An end to zero hours
Employees working zero hours or minimum hours are entitled to an offer of guaranteed hours based on the hours that they usually work. They will also be entitled to reasonable notice of shifts and to payment for shifts cancelled or curtailed at short notice.
4. Extension of sexual harassment liability
Employers are liable for acts of harassment committed by third parties (for example customers, visitors or suppliers) unless they took all reasonable steps to prevent it.
The extension is a new pro-active duty to prevent sexual harassment which makes it clear that all reasonable steps need to be taken to prevent it (the current test omits the word ‘all’).
5. Right to Statutory Sick Pay
Statutory sick pay (SSP) will be paid from day one of a sickness absence (rather than the current position of SSP being payable on day 4). All employees are eligible, regardless of their earnings. The Government is also considering setting SSP for low earners as a percentage of actual earnings if their actual earnings are lower than the SSP flat rate (currently £116.75).
6. Expanded scope of redundancy consultation
When considering whether the threshold for collective redundancy consultation has been reached (20 or more redundancies at any establishment in a 90-day period), an establishment is to be regarded as the whole business, not any individual site, branch or factory. This will bring more redundancy situations within the scope of redundancy consultation.
7. It will be harder to refuse flexible working requests
When considering requests for flexible working, you will need to state which of the 8 statutory reasons to refuse you are using, and you will also need to show that the refusal was ‘reasonable’.
8. ‘Fire and rehire’ change
It will become automatically unfair to dismiss any employee because they have refused to accept less favourable terms of employment, or because the employer wants to replace them with someone on less favourable terms. There will be a limited exception where the business is in significant financial difficulties and the employer couldn’t reasonably avoid the variation.
Important note: Most of the provisions in the Bill won’t come into force until 2026 at the earliest. Not all of them will make it through the parliamentary and public consultation process and some may be changed.
Further reading
- Post General Election update – How will a Labour Government impact your workplace?
- Employment Rights Bill: factsheets – GOV.UK
- Flexible working requests – 4 tips for employers
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The team at Hunter Law is here for you. We can handle your HR issues, finesse your policies, and keep you up-to-date on evolving legislation. Please get in touch with our legal team, we’d love to help.
