Major updates to the Employment Rights Bill

Hot off the presses, the government are proposing changes to the only very recently published Employment Rights Bill (the Bill).

And, crikey, one of those changes is a biggy that we think you absolutely need to be aware of.

Extending the time limit to bring a claim

The government are proposing to extend the time limit for individuals to bring an Employment Tribunal claim (and we’re talking about any tribunal claim – discrimination and unfair dismissal included) from 3 months to 6 months.

Combined with some of the other changes in the Employment Rights Bill, this massively extends the scope for potential future tribunal claims. Now, it hasn’t come completely out of the blue (it was mentioned by Labour as part of their election campaign) but it wasn’t included in the Employment Rights Bill.

This is something that now looks set to take effect in the future. Precisely when? We don’t know, but the thinking is still that this will be at some point in late 2025 or 2026.

Some other key changes

At the same time, the government (and other Members of Parliament) are taking the opportunity to try and tweak the Bill.

Other changes to the Bill that have been announced and that we want to make sure you’ve got on your radar include:

• Providing some further clarity on how long the “initial period of employment” will be. Remember, the initial period of employment will give employers some extra scope to dismiss employees within a limited period after their employment has started, taking into account that the right to bring a claim for unfair dismissal will become a day one right. It’s been clarified in the amendment paper that the initial period of employment must be between 3 and 9 months.

• Requiring employers to build “menstrual problems and menstrual disorders” into the equality action plans that were set out in the original draft Bill.

• Changing the rules on payments to be provided to workers where shifts are cancelled, moved or curtailed at short notice, including giving the tribunal discretion on whether to make an award, and additional discretion as to what the amount to be awarded would be, taking into account the “seriousness of the matter”.

Already, and perhaps unsurprisingly, we are starting to see a steady stream of criticism of some of the proposed measures in the Bill. The Regulatory Policy Committee that sits in Parliament, for example, has said that the government have not given enough evidence to justify 8 of the more controversial measures in the Bill. The Committee says this means that the government’s assessment of the overall impact of the Bill is inadequate.

This undoubtedly means that there will be lots of other tweaks and changes to the Bill as it works its way through Parliament before becoming law, particularly as consultations get underway properly.

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