Employment Rights Bill Delivery Roadmap
The Delivery Roadmap Provides Anticipated Commencement Dates For Provisions Within The Employment Rights Bill
The Government’s intention was that the Bill would receive Royal Assent and become law before Parliament’s summer recess, however that now appears unlikely. The Employment Rights Bill Delivery Roadmap, recently published by the Government, suggests the Bill’s measures will not be brought in to effect immediately but will instead be rolled out in phases. The Roadmap also describes a series of consultations that will begin in Summer 2025 and end in Winter 2026.
The headline implementation date is that changes to Statutory Sick Pay will be introduced In April 2026.
Timetable for implementation of the Employment Rights Bill
The commencement timetable is intended to be as follows:
Employment Rights Bill Dashboard
For in-depth information visit the Employment Rights Bill Dashboard. The Dashboard is updated regularly as the Bill progresses through Parliament and amendments are made.
First Phase of Measures
The first phase of measures will take effect soon after the Bill receives Royal Assent. These include:
- Repealing most of the Trade Union Act 2016 and the Strikes (Minimum Services Levels) Act 2023
- Protections against dismissal for taking industrial action
Read more about Trade Unions and Strike Action.
Second Phase of Measures
The second phase of measures will take effect in April 2026. These measures include:
- Paternity leave and unpaid parental leave will become Day One Rights; read more about Family Friendly Leave
- The Lower Earnings Limit and Waiting Days will be removed from Statutory Sick Pay, making SSP period
- Collective redundancy the maximum period of the protective award will double
- Fair Work Agency body will be established
- Whistleblowing protections
- Simplifying trade union recognition process
- Electronic and workplace balloting
Third Phase of Measures
The third phase of measures will take effect in October 2026. These include:
- Limiting fire and rehire practices to situations where a business is at risk of financial collapse
- Extend the list of what must be included in a Section One Statement to notify workers of their right to join a trade union
- Requiring employers to take “all reasonable steps” to prevent sexual harassment of their employees
- Introducing third-party harassment and making employers liable for any third-party harassment occurring during employment. Note third party harassment is not limited to sexual harassment and applies to all forms of harassment.
- Extension of the time limits for bringing an Employment Tribunal claim
- Bringing forward regulations to establish the Fair Pay Agreement Adult Social Care Negotiating Body
- Procurement – two-tier code
- Tightening tipping law, including mandating consultation with workers to ensure fairer tip allocation.
- Strengthen trade unions’ right of access
- New rights and protections for trade union reps
- Extending protections against detriments for taking industrial action
Fourth Phase Of Measures
The fourth phase of measures will take effect in 2027:
- Extend the Flexible Working regime
- Introduce Compassionate Leave for all workers
- Ending the exploitative use of Zero Hour Contracts and applying ZHC measures to agency workers
- Removing the qualifying period for unfair dismissal
- Collective redundancy – collective consultation threshold
- Implementation of the gender pay gap outsourcing measure will be dependent on timelines for broader changes to pay gap reporting, including related measures in the draft Equality (Race & Disability) Bill
- Introduce gender pay gap reporting and menopause action plans
- Enhance maternity protection to prohibit dismissal for 6 months following a return to work from maternity leave
- Introducing a power to enable regulations to specify steps that are to be regarded as “reasonable”, to determine whether an employer has taken all reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment
- Blacklisting
- Industrial relations framework
- Regulation of umbrella companies
Timetable For Consultation
A series of consultations will begin this summer and continue into early 2026. I will update the Employment Right Bill dashboard and individual pages about each individual provision to be introduced by the Bill as more information about the consultations are announced.
In brief the Roadmap indicates that during the Summer/Autumn 2025 there will be consultations on day-1 unfair dismissal, fire-and-rehire, umbrella reforms, bereavement leave, rights of pregnant workers and zero-hour contracts. During the Winter there will be further consultations covering tips, flexible working and collective redundancy.
Get the Latest Legislation News and My Top Tips delivered straight to your inbox |
 |
