Key changes to the UK Employment Rights Bill as it passes to the House of Lords

Numerous amendments have been suggested to the UK Employment Rights Bill as it has been debated in the House of Commons. We outline the measures that are supported by the Government and some that have been proposed but will not be taken forward. 

On 5 March 2025, proposed amendments to the Employment Rights Bill (ERB) were published. These include a number of Government sponsored amendments that are very likely to be included in the final form of the legislation.

Some of the Government amendments were set out in a series of consultation responses published on 4 March 2025, including:

• extending the ERB's provisions on zero and low hours contracts to agency workers;
• doubling the protective award for failure to consult in collective redundancy situations from 90 days' to 180 days' pay;
• increasing the rate of statutory sick pay (SSP) to the lower of 80% of salary or the standard SSP rate;
• various amendments to the ERB's proposals on industrial action, trade union recognition and the regulation of 'access agreements', under which union officials will be entitled to access workers; and 
• the stronger regulation of umbrella companies.

The Government has also proposed several other significant amendments not covered by its consultation responses, including:

• abandoning the proposal to remove the 'at one establishment' wording from the rules on collective redundancies (i.e. those involving 20 or more employees). Instead, collective consultation obligations will be triggered either if there are 20 or more redundancies at one establishment or if the number of redundancies meets a different 'threshold number' (which will be specified in regulations);
• strengthening the proposed new Fair Work Agency, by granting it powers to issue notices of underpayment, bring tribunal proceedings on behalf of workers and provide legal assistance in employment-related claims. It will also have enforcement powers in relation to certain statutory payments, including sick pay and holiday pay, and will be able to recover enforcement costs from employers;
• boosting the measures designed to prevent avoidance of the ERB's rules on zero and low hours contracts, but at the same time introducing a new ability to contract out of these measures using a collective agreement;
• bringing in a requirement to keep records of compliance with the annual leave obligations in the Working Time Regulations 1998;
• acceptance of the principle of bereavement leave for pre-24 week pregnancy loss. On 24 March 2025 in a written response to the Women and Equalities Committee report into miscarriage and bereavement leave, the Government said the Department for Business and Trade 'looks forward to further discussions with the Committee regarding the introduction of a statutory entitlement for such leave as the Bill moves to the House of Lords'; and
• an apparent commitment to begin a review of the overall parental leave system, potentially as early as June 2025.

The Government has also made it clear that some measures proposed by way of amendment to the Bill are not being taken forward, at least for now. These include: 

• making the right to carers' leave, introduced in 2024, a paid entitlement; and 
• creating a new kinship care leave entitlement;

Finally, no provision is made for the expected 'right to switch off '.

The ERB is now in the House of Lords where the second reading took place on 27 March 2025.

This article was authored by Christina Morton,  senior knowledge lawyer in our UK employment team.