Why read all 158 pages of the Employment Rights Bill 2024 when we’ve done it for you? Very superficially it has to be confessed & for now skipping over much of the very lengthy sections about trade unions, public sector rights and the new labour market enforcement agency to just focus on the stuff we know our clients will want to know.
Bear in mind of course that this Employment Rights Bill has only today had it’s first reading in the House of Commons so it has a way to go before it is an Act at which time we are infomed it will be the Employment Rights Act 2025 – so there’s a clue about timing right there! There are rumours that some parts of it will not be enforced until 2026 but that appears to be media speculation. What is evident is that the Act will require a number of additional Regulations to give the details of how it will be enforced.
So a very top level summary – much of which you may have seen us talk about already & a few surprises with a lot of detail to be fleshed out:
- Zero Hours Contracts – not entirely eradicated but a lot of words in the Bill that essentially say that if you work for 12 weeks you will have the right to be offered a guaranteed hours contract based on the hours you have been working (replacing the Workers Predictable Terms and Conditions Act 2023 which never came into force). This right will apply to minimum hours contracts as well as zero hours contracts
- Also rights to pay if shifts are cancelled, curtailed or changed at short notice – no detail yet on what pay and what constitutes short notice
- Enhanced flexible working rights – in all honesty these do not look that different to what is already in effect – the key difference is a requirement for refusal by the employer to be reasonable and the employer to state why that refusal is deemed reasonable
- Statutory Sick Pay will be payable from the first (it is currently the 4th) day of absence and the lower earnings limit to be eligible for SSP is being removed – however it appears there will be a lower level of SSP for lower earners
- Parental bereavement leave is being changed to bereavement leave so it seems it will apply to all although there is wording that refers to “relevant relationships” although those are no as yet actually defined. The leave for bereavement of a child will remain two weeks’ and will be one week if the deceased is not a child
- Unpaid Parental Leave and Paternity Leave will be day one rights, there will be no qualifying period needed
- Sexual harassment – it is proposed to add back in the word ALL when defining what reasonable steps an employer must take to prevent sexual harassment (this was previously removed when the new duty around sexual harassment was passed in 2023) – also a disclosure of sexual harassment will be treated as a protected disclosure
- The biggie that has been in the news a lot – unfair dismissal to become a day one right (once employment has started) – removing the two year qualifying period that many employers relied upon as a safety net ….however it seems it is proposed that there will be a 9 month initial period of employment or probation period …some might call that a qualifying period by another name -we will see what conditions are attached to that…again no detail yet, we’ll have to wait for the consultation paper to be published first
- It will be automatically unfair to dismiss an employee for refusing a contract variation – what has been largely referred to as Fire & Rehire – there are some limited exceptions with a requirement to consult – at vivoHR we’ve been advising clients for years to exercise caution in such circumstances…
- Changes to collective redundancy consultations with numbers affected now being a sum across the whole business rather than just at one establishment
- Requirements for larger businesses to produce Equality Action Plans for gender equality
- A new requirement for Statements of Employment Particulars (what you may refer to as your employment contract in many cases) to include a statement that employees have the right to join a union. We will be updating our templates in 2025 ready for this