What are the proposed changes to the Employment Rights Bill?
Last week, on 27 November 2024, a raft (59 pages!) of proposed amendments to the Employment Rights Bill (the Bill) were published in a parliamentary amendment paper. This will be considered in detail by the House of Commons Public Bill Committee (the Bill Committee) in the coming six weeks, before it reports back to the House of Commons on the Bill on or before 21 January 2025.
The proposed amendments in this amendment paper are mostly from the government (via Justin Madders, Parliamentary Under Secretary and Minister for Employment Rights, Competition and Markets) and are likely to be accepted. The handful of non-government proposals from other parties are likely to be discussed but not necessarily adopted without further amendment by the government. It is also worth noting that further proposed amendments are likely to be tabled, which will be added to the agenda for the Bill Committee’s deliberations.
What are the proposed changes?
Many of the amendments relate to the right to guaranteed hours, referred to colloquially as the zero hours contracts provisions, which we will examine in depth in an upcoming Insight. It is safe to say from our reading already, that the amendments do nothing to simplify the very complex provisions in this area from the original Bill.
Other areas of proposed amendment include: public sector outsourcing, statutory sick pay and equality action plans. We will, of course, address relevant amendments when our Insights on those topics are published in the coming weeks.
A couple of areas we have covered in the ERB Series already are affected by the proposed amendments as follows:
- Trade union access to workplaces for recruitment, meetings etc (see “The Pendulum Swings on Industrial Relations” Insight link below). This will be restricted to unions which have certificates of independence; and the right to access a workplace will not include any part which is used as a dwelling.
- Day one right to claim unfair dismissal (see link below). The government will be able to impose a cap on the level of compensation an employee can receive if dismissed within the Initial Period of Employment.
Most noteworthy: A surprise proposal?
Another key area of considerable note in the amendments is the introduction of a change which was not even included in the original Bill. The government now proposes that the Bill will increase the basic time limit for bringing employment tribunal claims from three months to six months from the date of the act, or most recentact, complained of.
The proposal is not entirely unexpected, however, as it was included in Labour’s pre-election Plan to Make Work Pay document; indeed, it was notable that the proposal to increase tribunal time limits was ‘missing’ from the Bill when it was first published in October. It may have simply been another case of the 100-day self-imposed deadline for the Bill meaning that the level of detail needed to elicit change in over one hundred legislative mentions of the tribunal time limit was simply too much to draft in the time available. In any event, the proposal is now made and is likely to go through given the government’s parliamentary majority.
The obvious effect of this will be a potential increase in the number of tribunal claims made, as employees will have longer to take advice and prepare their ET1 and particulars of claim. It will, of course, also allow longer for the parties to seek to resolve issues between them before an employee needs to instigate proceedings to protect their ability to bring their claim in the tribunal; however, on balance, more proceedings are likely in our view.
See our previous ERB Insights in this series
- Overview: ERB What’s In, What’s Out, What’s Next? (11 October 2024)
- ERB: Flexible Working: Further Flexion (21 October 2024)
- ERB: Day 1 right to claim unfair dismissal (25 October 2024)
- ERB: The Pendulum Swings on Industrial Relations (8 November 2024)
- ERB: The Fair Work Agency (15 November 2024)
- ERB: Dismissal and re-engagement - tying the hands of employers? (22 November 2024)
- ERB: Further rules on fair tipping (3 December 2024)
For further information please contact our expert employment solicitors.
