Employment Edit: 11 September 2025

Legal Updates

Employment Rights Bill latest

The House of Lords’ third reading of the Employment Rights Bill took place last week. The Bill will now return to the House of Commons, with the first sitting for the Commons to consider the Lords’ amendments scheduled for next Monday 15 September. For more detail on the reforms in the Bill and what they mean for employers, take a look at our employer’s handbook to the Employment Rights Bill.

The Bill has hit the headlines this week after several ministerial changes prompted trade unions to urge the government to stick with its plans for reform of workers’ rights. In this blog post, Katie Wooller considers what next for the Bill and its implementation.

Neonatal care leave and pay

On 6 April this year, new rights to statutory neonatal care leave and pay came into force. Eligible parents are entitled to up to 12 weeks’ leave from work if their baby has received qualifying neonatal care for at least seven consecutive days. Neonatal care leave is a ‘day one’ right, but the employee must meet certain criteria (including having 26 weeks’ continuous service) in order to be eligible for statutory neonatal care pay.

The government recently published new technical guidance for employers on these statutory entitlements. The guidance, which can be found here, includes detailed information about the eligibility criteria for statutory neonatal care leave and pay as well as case studies exploring various complex scenarios that may arise.

Please do get in touch with Katherine Flower or your usual Burges Salmon contact if you have any queries on these rights or would like our help with updating your policies.

Competing for talent

Earlier this week, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) published new ‘Competing for talent’ guidance for employers aimed at helping them navigate competition law when recruiting and retaining workers and setting pay rates. The guidance, which can be found here, includes an explanation and examples of the three main types of anti-competition behaviour in the labour market that are prohibited – no-poaching agreements, wage-fixing and sharing of commercially sensitive information about employees.

The guidance is a further demonstration of the CMA’s growing interest in the labour market, which it has designated as one of its areas of focus since its 2023/2024 annual plan. For more information on how to stay competition law compliant and some practical steps you can take to protect your organisation, access our short guide to competition law concerns for employers via the link below.

Thought-leadership, themes and trends

What does a ‘reasonable’ workplace investigation require?

In the latest in our series of articles for People Management, Megan Summers looks at how investigators should approach gathering evidence and interviewing individuals.

Data subject access requests

In this article, Ellen Goodland and Sam Efiong consider a recent reprimand issued by the ICO for repeated failures to comply with data protection obligations in relation to the handling of data subject access requests (DSARs). They highlight the importance of robust processes for handling DSARs and provide practical takeaways for employers to help manage DSARs effectively.