April 2026: ERA 2025 Changes
Section A: Employment Rights Act 2025 – April 2026 employer update The Government’s phased implementation of the Employment Rights Act 2025 enters a major operational phase in April 2026. While some headline reforms, including changes to unfair dismissal qualifying service, have been deferred until 2027, the April 2026 changes will materially affect sickness […]
Employment Rights Bill Clears Lords Stage
Employment Rights Bill Clears House of Lords With the Lords now allowing the Employment Rights Bill to proceed, the focus shifts away from whether the reforms happen and toward when they take effect, how they are staged and how the government chooses to ‘operationalise’ them. Employers should assume therefore that 2026 will bring […]
Unfair Dismissal Compensation Cap to be Abolished
Unfair Dismissal Compensation Cap to be Removed The government has published an amendment to the Employment Rights Bill which would remove the statutory cap on the compensatory award for ordinary unfair dismissal. The amendment deletes section 124 of the Employment Rights Act 1996, which is the provision that currently limits compensation to the […]
Employment Rights Bill Unfair Dismissal: 6 Months Not Day 1
Employment Rights Bill Unfair Dismissal Manifesto Pledge & Initial Proposals The original plan was to introduce ordinary unfair dismissal protection from the first day of employment. This would have removed the existing two year qualifying period and created a new framework where every dismissal required a fair reason and a fair process from […]
Extension to ACAS Early Conciliation Window
The Government has published draft regulations to double the Acas Early Conciliation window from six weeks to twelve, with the new period applying to Early Conciliation started on or after 1 December 2025. In outline terms, this means conciliators will have a longer period to contact the parties and explore settlement before a claim is […]
Govt Report: Improving Gender Pay Equality in the Workplace
The UK government has published new guidance, “How to improve gender equality in the workplace: actions for employers”, to provide employers with evidence-based measures to improve recruitment, retention and progression outcomes for women. The guidance was produced by the Behavioural Insights Team and the Office for Equality and Opportunity. It sits within a wider toolkit […]
LPC Policy Remit Set for Minimum Wage Review
The Department for Business and Trade (DBT) has released its policy remit for the Low Pay Commission (LPC) to consider when making recommendations on the 2025/26 National Minimum Wage (NMW) and National Living Wage (NLW). LPC minimum wages review The remit provides the framework for the LPC’s recommendations on the National Minimum Wage […]
Latest Changes to Employment Rights Bill – July 2025
A newly-published list of amendments to the Employment Rights Bill introduces substantial and previously unannounced changes to the legislation. The changes include a ban on confidentiality clauses in employment agreements preventing workers from speaking out about workplace harassment or discrimination; a revised, more targeted approach to fire and rehire restrictions; significant updates to the UK’s […]
Employment Rights Bill Roadmap
The Government has released its long-awaited roadmap for implementing the Employment Rights Bill (ERB), confirming a staged rollout of reforms through to 2027. The roadmap offers a three-year calendar that UK employers can now align with their HR, budgeting and compliance plans. The timetable clusters reforms during this period around common start dates, 6 April […]
Revised Guidance on NDAs
Section 17 of the Victims and Prisoners Act 2024 will bring in the most significant restriction on non disclosure agreements (NDAs) since the #MeToo reforms. Under the new regime, any NDA signed on or after 1 October 2025 is unenforceable so far as it purports to stop a victim of crime, or anyone who reasonably […]