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 whistleblowing regime (albeit these are not government-backed and as such unlikely to be accepted); and simplifications to the complex new framework governing zero-hours workers.
Together, these amendments and the implementation roadmap offer a clearer picture of the ERB’s final shape and signal that, while the Bill retains its ambition to modernise workplace rights, ministers may be seeking to rebalance some of its more contentious measures.
The Bill is now part-way through its Lords stages. Government amendments were tabled on 9 July and the Bill is scheduled for four days of Report stage debate in July, followed by Third Reading and a short “ping-pong” with the Commons. Because Parliament rises on 23 July, Royal Assent is now pencilled in for the autumn session rather than before the summer recess.
This update outlines where the legislation now stands and what employers should begin preparing for ahead of Royal Assent, expected in autumn 2025.
Fire and rehire
Clause 26 of the Employment Rights Bill would insert a new section 104I into the Employment Rights Act 1996 to curb “fire-and-rehire” dismissals. Under the July 2025 Government-backed amendments, a dismissal will be automatically unfair only when the employer is trying to impose a “restricted variation”—currently defined as a change to pay, pensions, contractual hours or holiday, or any attempt to add a new flexibility clause on those topics. All other contractual changes, such as relocation or minor duties tweaks, remain subject to the ordinary section 98(4) reasonableness test and are not automatically unfair.
For restricted variations the former six-point consultation checklist has been dropped. A dismissal will therefore stay automatically unfair unless the employer can prove that refusing the change would trigger “calamitous” financial distress (public bodies must show that their statutory functions would become financially unsustainable; local authorities also need a formal intervention direction). If that defence is made out, the tribunal reverts to the normal reasonableness test; if not, the dismissal is automatically unfair and compensation is uncapped.
A parallel ban makes it automatically unfair to dismiss employees simply to replace them with agency workers or contractors, unless the same financial-distress test is satisfied. Existing flexibility clauses survive, but inserting new ones after the Act takes effect will count as a restricted variation.
The Department for Business & Trade will consult on detailed regulations in autumn 2025, and the fire-and-rehire regime is scheduled to commence on 1 October 2026. Taken together, these changes sharply limit dismissal-and-re-engagement for core terms while leaving routine contractual updates within the traditional unfair-dismissal framework.
Non disclosure agreements (NDAs)
Clause 22A of the Employment Rights Bill has been drafted to significantly curtail the use of non disclosure provisions in employment documentation. Any term, whether in an employment contract, settlement agreement or other deal, that seeks to bar a worker from reporting or discussing alleged harassment or discrimination, or the employer’s handling of such claims, will be legally ineffective. The rule applies to present and past employees alike and could, through secondary legislation, be extended to cover contractors, interns and similar non-employees.
The protection is broad. It covers allegations against the business itself or against other staff, and it applies regardless of whether the speaker or someone else was the victim. By design, the measure attacks what ministers describe as the routine misuse of NDAs and aims to create more transparent and safer workplaces.
For organisations the implications are immediate. Standard clauses in contracts, settlement templates and policy documents must be reviewed quickly, because any attempt to gag disclosures about equality breaches will not only be void but could also expose the employer to fresh litigation and reputational damage.
Workers could not be threatened with breach of contract for speaking to regulators, the police, the press or colleagues. Routine insistence on confidentiality in discrimination settlements therefore becomes high-risk.
One anomaly remains: the clause does not extend to claims involving a failure to make reasonable adjustments, so NDAs covering that specific issue would appear to still stand, for the time being at least.
Bereavement leave for pregnancy loss
Pregnancy loss protection has also been added to the Employment Rights Bill’s new statutory bereavement leave right. From the start of the scheme, parents who lose a pregnancy before 24 weeks will be entitled to take time off to grieve without fear of losing their jobs. Draft wording defines “pregnancy loss” broadly, to cover pre-24-week loss through, for example, miscarriage, ectopic pregnancy, medical termination or failed IVF implantation.
The Bill presently guarantees at least one week of leave for both the person who was pregnant and their partner; ministers will consult later this year on whether that period should be extended and on what documentary evidence, if any, employers may request.
No statutory pay is promised at this stage, so the leave is expected to be unpaid unless organisations choose to enhance it voluntarily.
The obligation will be a day-one right, so length-of-service thresholds will not apply.
Under the Government’s implementation roadmap, consultations on the detail will run in autumn 2025, with the new entitlement scheduled to take effect in 2027, alongside wider bereavement-leave reforms.
Employers should start updating family-leave policies, train line managers on compassionate conversations and decide whether to provide paid leave to reduce the risk of staff relying on sick pay instead.
Zero hours & agency worker parity
Several non-government amendments seek to dilute the Bill’s toughest zero-hours provisions. However, as with the proposed watering-down of the new whistle-blowing rules, these changes have no ministerial support and are therefore unlikely to survive. They are, however, worth noting.
First, Clause 1 would be recast so that workers merely gain a right to request fixed hours; the automatic duty on employers to offer them disappears. The mechanism would operate like flexible-working requests: staff must apply and employers must consider, not concede. Only those averaging at least eight hours a week over the previous 26 weeks could apply, leaving ultra-casual staff without any new leverage.
Next, the draft scraps “short-notice” cancellation payments where a shift is withdrawn 48 hours or more before it starts. That two-day buffer lets employers firm up rotas without paying compensation and will need to be built into scheduling software.
Agency labour remains a focal point. Schedule 1 would impose a strict pay-parity test on any guaranteed-hours offer: it must match either the best rate earned during the reference period or, exceptionally, a lower rate that can be objectively justified as proportionate. Hirers would therefore need fresh pay audits and clear explanatory notices when relying on that escape clause.
Finally, the Secretary of State could still grant exemptions, but only after balancing worker benefit against exceptional employer hardship—signalling limited carve-outs in genuine crises. New wording also blocks employers from using guaranteed-hours offers to undercut agency workers’ pay and clarifies how reference periods work once an agency worker becomes an employee.
Whistleblowing
Specific amendments have been proposed to reform the whistleblowing framework under the Employment Rights Bill, though they do not currently have Government support and as such are unlikely to progress. However, they are worth noting given their inclusion in the latest draft.
Under these proposed amendments, the definition of a ‘qualifying disclosure’ would be simplified and broadened to include misuse of public funds, abuse of power and other categories to be defined by regulation. Protection would only apply where a disclosure is genuinely in the public interest, not just where the worker reasonably believes it to be.
A new statutory body, the Office of the Whistleblower, would be established within a year of Royal Assent. It would set whistleblowing standards, offer an independent reporting line, and have powers to issue orders for enforcement or redress.
Detriment against whistleblowers would also become an offence, punishable by tribunal penalties of up to 10% of global turnover (although the tribunal’s role in enforcing a criminal style sanction is unclear).
Larger employers, those in financial services or those at money laundering risk would be required to take reasonable steps to investigate protected disclosures.
If accepted, the detail of such provisions would be expected to follow in regulations within six months of the Bill becoming law.
Implementation roadmap
The Department for Business & Trade has published a 12-page implementation roadmap that maps out how the Employment Rights Bill will be rolled out between Royal Assent and 2027.
Royal Assent, expected in autumn 2025, will trigger a first wave of changes. On the day the Bill becomes law the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act 2023 and most of the Trade Union Act 2016 will be repealed; ballot and notice requirements for industrial action will be simplified; and employees will gain express protection from dismissal for taking lawful industrial action.
The next key date is 6 April 2026. By that point, the new Fair Work Agency will be up and running. ‘Day-one’ rights to statutory paternity leave and to unpaid parental leave will replace existing length-of-service qualifying periods. Statutory Sick Pay will become available from the first day of absence and to all workers, because both the lower-earnings limit and the three-day waiting period will be abolished. The maximum protective award for failures in collective-redundancy consultation will double, and reforms to whistle-blowing law and to electronic and workplace union balloting will take effect.
A further tranche is scheduled for 1 October 2026. From this date employers will have a statutory duty to take “all reasonable steps” to prevent sexual harassment, including harassment by third parties. The new statutory code and tribunal uplift regime governing fire-and-rehire practices will come into force, alongside tighter tipping rules, a two-tier public-procurement code and stronger union-access rights. Employment-tribunal limitation periods will be extended and detriment protection for employees who take industrial action will be widened.
In 2027, the final phase of measures will arrive. Protection from unfair dismissal will become a day-one right (subject to a statutory probation model that is still to be consulted on). A default right to request flexible working will be introduced, and enhanced protections for pregnant workers will be put in place. The Government will also regulate umbrella companies and outlaw exploitative zero-hours contracts, extending parallel rights to agency staff. Further duties will require employers to publish gender-pay-gap and menopause action plans, provide statutory bereavement leave for pregnancy loss, and comply with revised collective-consultation thresholds.
Consultation will be phased to allow stakeholders to shape the detail. Between summer and autumn 2025 the Government will consult on the day-one unfair dismissal model, a Fair Pay Agreement for adult social care, a statutory fire and rehire code, umbrella company regulation and the reinstatement of the School Support Staff Negotiating Body.
A second wave in autumn 2025 will cover union access rights, electronic balloting, controls on zero-hours contracts, pregnancy worker safeguards and the new bereavement leave entitlement.
The final consultation window, running through winter 2025 and early 2026, will look at collective redundancy thresholds, the flexible working default, tighter tipping law and strengthened anti-blacklisting rules.
Need assistance?
While the final provisions of the Employment Rights Bill remain subject to amendment through the last stages of the legislative process, the roadmap gives employers an indicative timetable for implementation: immediate industrial relations changes on Royal Assent, major family-friendly and sickness reforms by April 2026, contractual and harassment duties by October 2026 and the headline day-one unfair dismissal and zero-hours measures during 2027.
Although the headline reforms are pushed into 2027, it is advisable for employers to take preparatory steps. Policies, procedures, documentation, systems and budgets will require review and potential amendment in advance of reforms taking effect. Workforce training and communication will also be important to ensure full compliance with the new laws and legal risk mitigation.
For advice and support on the impact of the Employment Rights Bill on your organisation, contact us.
Read the full government roadmap here >>
The latest version of the Employment Rights Bill can be read here >>
Author
Founder and Managing Director Anne Morris is a fully qualified solicitor and trusted adviser to large corporates through to SMEs, providing strategic immigration and global mobility advice to support employers with UK operations to meet their workforce needs through corporate immigration.
She is a recognised by Legal 500 and Chambers as a legal expert and delivers Board-level advice on business migration and compliance risk management as well as overseeing the firm’s development of new client propositions and delivery of cost and time efficient processing of applications.
Anne is an active public speaker, immigration commentator, and immigration policy contributor and regularly hosts training sessions for employers and HR professionals
