Employment Rights Bill: call for evidence

Aims of the Bill

Major topics covered by the bill include:

• Zero hours contracts – introducing a right to reasonable notice of shifts and to be offered a contract with guaranteed hours, reflecting hours regularly worked.
• Flexible working – requiring employers to justify the refusal of flexible working requests.
• Statutory sick pay – removing the three-day waiting period (so employees are eligible from the first day of illness or injury) and the lower earnings limit test for eligibility.
• Family leave – removing the qualifying period for paternity leave and ordinary parental leave (so employees have the right from the first day of employment), and expanding eligibility for bereavement leave.
• Protection from harassment – expanding employers’ duties to prevent harassment of staff.
• Unfair dismissal – removing the two-year qualifying period (so employees are protected from unfair dismissal from the first day of employment), subject to a potential probationary period.
• Fire and rehire – making it automatically unfair to dismiss workers because they refuse to agree to a variation of contract.
• Sectoral collective bargaining – reintroducing the School Staff Negotiating Body and creating an Adult Social Care Negotiating Body, which could determine pay and other terms and conditions for workers in these sectors.
• Trade unions – introducing rights for trade unions to access workplaces, and repealing the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act 2023 and most provisions of the Trade Union Act 2016.
• Enforcement – bringing together powers of existing labour market enforcement bodies, along with some new powers, under the Secretary of State and enforcement officers

Follow the progress of the Employment Rights Bill

The Employment Rights Bill [Bill 011 of 2024-25] was introduced in the House of Commons on 10 October 2024. The bill’s second reading was held on 21 October 2024.

• Bills before Parliament: Employment Rights Bill
• Read Explanatory Notes: Employment Rights Bill
• House of Commons Library Briefing Paper

Oral evidence sessions are expected to be held on Tuesday 26 and Thursday 28 November.

Guidance on submitting written evidence

Deadline for written evidence submissions

The Public Bill Committee is now able to receive written evidence. The sooner you send in your submission, the more time the Committee will have to take it into consideration and possibly reflect it in an amendment. The order in which amendments are taken in Committee will be available in due course under Selection of Amendments on the Bill documents pages. Once the Committee has dealt with an amendment it will not revisit it.

The first sitting of the Public Bill Committee is expected to be on Tuesday 26 November and the Committee is scheduled to report by Tuesday 21 January 2025. However, please note that when the Committee concludes its consideration of the Bill it is no longer able to receive written evidence and it can conclude earlier than the expected deadline of 5.00pm on Tuesday 21 January 2025. You are strongly advised to submit your written evidence as soon as possible.

Your submission should be emailed to scrutiny@parliament.uk

Further guidance on submitting written evidence can be found here (pdf, 1MB).

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