Employment Rights Bill
Described as phase one of the Plan to Make Work Pay, the Employment Rights Bill was published on 10 October 2024. To read an overview of our take of it in its original form, please see our article here.
The Employment Rights Bill is making its way through Parliament, with significant amendments being made along the way, and it has now doubled in size since its first iteration. For our thoughts on the Government amendments made to the Bill on 5 March 2025 please see here.
The Employment Rights Bill is currently anticipated to pass by Summer 2025. For many reforms, however, it simply provides the framework, with much of the detail still to be fleshed out by secondary legislation, codes of practice and guidance.
Other employment reforms beyond the Employment Rights Bill
Reforms are also underway or anticipated in addition to the Employment Rights Bill, as part of the Government’s plan:
- Some reforms are being delivered via existing powers, and non-legislative routes, such as changes to Minimum Wages.
- Changes in respect of pay and tax were also announced in the Autumn Budget on 30 October 2024.
- Additional reforms are promised via the Equality (Race and Disability) Bill, which is still awaited. On 18 March 2025, the Government published a Consultation on mandatory ethnicity and disability pay gap reporting, which will help shape this bill and on 7 April 2025 published a call for evidence on equality law, which seeks views on making the right to make equal pay effective for ethnic minority and disabled people and invites feedback on other areas of equality law.
- Longer-term reforms (such as to worker and employment status) are also promised but the Government recognises that these will take longer to undertake and implement.
Separately, the Data (Use and Access) Bill (‘DUA Bill’) was published on 23 October 2024, which proposes some reforms in respect of data privacy and AI that, although not necessarily linked to the Plan to Make Work Pay, may be of interest to employers. The DUA Bill is currently going through Parliament. We discuss aspects of the DUA Bill in brief in the Data Privacy and AI section. The DUA Bill, however, is not included in the Timings etc section of this reform hub.
