Implementing the Employment Rights Bill

The Department for Business and Trade has published a helpful roadmap on when various parts of the Employment Rights Bill will be both consulted upon and then implemented.

As expected, there 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 Bill’ provisions come into force? We’ll have to wait and see.

Consultations

The timings of the various consultations will be as follows:

Summer/autumn 2025

• Giving employees protection from unfair dismissal from Day 1, including on the dismissal process in the statutory probation period.

Autumn 2025

• Trade union measures including electronic balloting and workplace balloting, simplifying trade union recognition processes, duty to inform workers of their right to join a trade union, and right of access
• New rights and protections for trade union representatives will be covered by an ACAS Code of Practice consultation
• Fire and rehire
• Regulation of umbrella companies
• Bereavement leave
• Rights for pregnant workers
• Zero hours contracts

Winter/ early 2026

• Trade union measures including protection against detriments for taking industrial action and blacklisting
• Tightening tipping law
• Collective redundancy
• Flexible working

When measures in the Bill will take effect

Some provisions will take 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• repeal of the great majority of the Trade Union Act 2016 (some provisions will be repealed via commencement order at a later date)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 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
• Whistleblowing protections
• Fair Work Agency body established
• Statutory Sick Pay – remove the Lower Earnings Limit and waiting period
• Simplifying the trade union recognition process
• Electronic and workplace balloting

October 2026

• Ending fire and rehire
• Tightening tipping law
• Duty to inform workers of their right to join a trade union
• Strengthening trade unions’ right of access
• 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
• New rights and protections for trade union reps
• Employment tribunal time limits increased
• Extending protections against detriments for taking industrial action

2027

• Gender pay gap and menopause action plans (introduced on a voluntary basis in April 2026)
• Enhanced rights for pregnant workers
• 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
• Collective redundancy – collective consultation threshold
• Flexible working
• Bereavement leave
• Ending the ‘exploitative’ use of zero hours contracts and applying ZHC measures to agency workers
• Day 1 right – protection from unfair dismissal
• Regulation of umbrella companies

See Implementing the Employment Rights Act 2025 for the thoughts of the well-known Darren Newman on the roadmap.