Employment Rights Act 2025

The Department for Business and Trade has updated its implementation timetable for when various parts of the Employment Rights Act 2025 will be implemented.

There have been, and will be, a raft of consultations and a staggered approach to implementing several of the most significant reforms. The DBT’s roadmap can be accessed here.

As regards enforcement, the DBT states that ‘we are committed to ensuring the enforcement landscape has the necessary capacity and capability to uphold the new requirements. This will include support for ACAS, the employment tribunal system and the new Fair Work Agency’. Does this presage increased resources for the already over-stretched tribunal system, let alone one that’ll have to cope with an even greater demand once many of Act's’ provisions come into force? We’ll have to wait and see.

When measures in the Act will take effect?

Some provisions took effect at, or shortly, after Royal Assent:

• repeal of the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act 2023
• repeal of the great majority of the Trade Union Act 2016 (some provisions will be repealed via commencement order at a later date)
• removing the 10-year ballot requirement for trade union political funds
• simplifying industrial action notices and industrial action ballot notices
• protections against dismissal for taking industrial action

The government is sticking pretty much to the usual April and October commencement dates and anticipates the following:

April 2026

• Collective redundancy protective award – doubling the maximum period of the protective award
• 'Day 1' paternity leave and unpaid parental leave
• Repeal of the levy that trade unions and employer associations pay to the Certification Officer
• Whistleblowing - strengthening protections for workers who ‘blow the whistle’ on sexual harassment
• Fair Work Agency body established
• Statutory Sick Pay – remove the Lower Earnings Limit and waiting period
• Bereaved Partners’ Paternity Leave - will enable bereaved fathers and partners to take up to 52 weeks of paternity leave if the mother or primary adopter dies within the first year of the child’s life  
• Simplifying the trade union recognition process
• Action plans on gender equality and supporting employees through the menopause (voluntary) 
• Menopause guidance 

31 August 2026

• Electronic and workplace balloting for statutory trade union ballots

1 October 2026

• Employment tribunal time limits increased - for breach of employment contract claims in Scotland this change will take place on 9 November 2026

30 October 2026

Trade union measures:

• the duty to inform workers of their right to join a trade union
• strengthening trade unions’ right of access
• implementing reforms to access and unfair practices during the recognition and derecognition process, and all remaining trade union recognition measures, including freezing the bargaining unit when an application is received
• new rights and protections for trade union representatives
• extending protections against detriments for taking industrial action

Harassment measures:

• requiring employers to take ‘all reasonable steps’ to prevent sexual harassment of their employees
• introducing an obligation on employers not to permit the harassment of their employees by third parties
• introducing a power that will enable the minister to make regulations at a later date, specifying evidence-based steps which employers must take to prevent sexual harassment (this will complement not replace the broader legislative requirement to take all reasonable steps)

By the end of 2026

• Strengthening tipping law

January 2027

• reduction of unfair dismissal qualifying period to 6 months, for dismissals from 1 January 2027, and uncapped compensatory awards
• fire and rehire protections

Later in 2027

• Action plans on gender equality and supporting employees through the menopause (mandatory)
• Enhanced dismissal protections for pregnant women and new mothers
• Extending blacklisting protections
• Industrial relations framework
• Regulation of umbrella companies
• Collective redundancy – consultation threshold
• Flexible working
• Bereavement leave including pregnancy loss
• Introduction of the right to guaranteed hours and the right to reasonable notice and short notice payments
• Electronic and workplace balloting for recognition and derecognition ballots
• Non-disclosure agreements regulations to prevent the misuse of NDAs in cases of workplace harassment or discrimination