The Employment Rights Bill was published on 10 October 2024, ahead of the government’s self-imposed 100-day deadline. Across its 158 pages, it covers wide-ranging areas of employment relations. Some changes are dramatic, others less so. We have set out below our pick of the key provisions:
- All employees will have the right to claim ordinary unfair dismissal from day one of employment. It is proposed that different rules will apply for conduct and capability dismissals during an initial period of employment (currently suggested to be the first nine months). Lower compensation may also be applicable in this period.
- Statutory Sick Pay will be payable from day one of any absence and all employees will be eligible, regardless of their earnings. The government is consulting on setting SSP for low earners as a percentage of actual earnings where their actual earnings are lower than the SSP flat rate (currently £116.75).
- Employees working under zero hours or minimum hours arrangements will be entitled to receive an offer of guaranteed hours based on the hours that they usually work. They will also be entitled to reasonable notice of shifts and to payment for shifts cancelled or curtailed at short notice.
- Employees will be eligible for parental leave (18 weeks unpaid leave per child) and paternity leave (up to 2 weeks of leave following the arrival of a child) from the first day of employment.
- It will become automatically unfair to dismiss any employee where the reason for that dismissal is because they have refused to accept less favourable terms of employment, or because the employer wants to replace them with someone on less favourable terms. There will be a limited exception where the business is in significant financial difficulties and the employer couldn’t reasonably avoid the variation.
- Employers will be liable for acts of harassment committed by third parties (for example customers, visitors or suppliers) unless they took all reasonable steps to prevent it.
- The new pro-active duty to prevent sexual harassment will be expanded to make it clear that all reasonable steps need to be taken to prevent it (the current test omits the word ‘all’).
- When considering whether the threshold for collective redundancy consultation has been reached (20 or more redundancies at any establishment in a 90-day period), an establishment is to be regarded as the whole business, not any individual site, branch or factory. This will bring more redundancy situations within the scope of redundancy consultation.
- When considering requests for flexible working, the employer will need to state which of the 8 statutory grounds it relies upon to refuse but will also need to show that the refusal was ‘reasonable’.
It is important to note that very little is going to change overnight. The vast majority of the provisions in the Bill will not come into force until 2026 at the earliest.
It is also important to remember that not all of the provisions will make it through the parliamentary and public consultation process unscathed. Some will disappear altogether. Others may look completely different by the time they hit the statute books.
So, whilst it is a good idea to know what changes the Bill might signal, the first step should be to sit back, take stock, reflect and watch.
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