Legislative limbo or Parliamentary ping pong – Employment Rights Bill update

As we inch towards the one-year anniversary of the Employment Rights Bill’s introduction to Parliament, all eyes will be on Westminster in the coming weeks to see what happens next with the Bill. 

Hailed by the government as ‘the biggest upgrade to rights at work in a generation’, the Employment Rights Bill contains a wide range of measures that will, once implemented, deliver a host of new and updated individual and collective rights and will pave the way for a more prominent role for trade unions. These new and improved rights include a ‘day one’ right for all employees not to be unfairly dismissed, new rights for zero hours and ‘low’ hours workers to be offered a guaranteed hours contract when eligible and significant new restrictions on changes to employees’ terms and conditions. 

Since its introduction last October, the Bill has progressed through the majority of the stages of the Parliamentary process. Several important amendments have been made to the Bill as part of that process - a Bill that was originally around 150 pages is now well over 300 pages. 

Some significant non-government amendments were approved by the House of Lords in July, including amendments which would:

• introduce a six-month qualifying period for unfair dismissal claims, rather than making unfair dismissal a ‘day one’ right. A lighter touch, modified dismissal procedure would still apply to dismissals that take place in the period of time after the qualifying period has passed – the length of that time period is not yet specified in the Bill.
• make the right to a guaranteed hours contract a right to request, rather than a right to be offered, such a contract.

Both of these amendments would, if accepted by the House of Commons, represent a significant change of tack. In particular, the retention of a qualifying period for unfair dismissal claims would be a marked change from the proposal set out in the Plan to Make Work Pay to make various basic individual rights (including protection against unfair dismissal) day one rights. It is therefore likely that these changes will face pushback from the Commons. 

When will that be? Well, the House of Lords’ third reading (the final stage in its review of the Bill) took place last week. The Bill now returns to the House of Commons for consideration of the various amendments made by the Lords, including those mentioned above. The first sitting for the Commons to consider the Lords’ amendments is scheduled for next Monday 15 September, before Parliament pauses for party conference season until mid-October. If the Commons rejects any of the Lords’ amendments, then we will enter into a period of ‘ping-pong’ as the Bill will ‘ping’ back to the Lords for it to reconsider its position on the outstanding points. 

So this week we are in a period of limbo, as we wait to see what stance the Commons will take on the 15^th and whether it will cede ground on any of the Lords’ non-government amendments. To add a bit more uncertainty into the mix, there have been several significant changes to personnel in the last few days, with a new business secretary in post following the cabinet reshuffle and Justin Madders leaving the role of minister for employment rights. 

Angela Rayner and Justin Madders were both key supporters of the Bill and the government’s plans to reform workers’ rights, as was Jonathan Reynolds (the former business secretary). Faced with these ministerial changes and the resulting uncertainty over whether they might represent a shift in the government’s policy, several prominent trade union leaders have in the last few days urged the government to continue with its plans to reform worker rights and to implement the Employment Rights Bill as planned. 

The Bill itself is well progressed and there are limited opportunities now to make fresh amendments (save for on outstanding issues that have not yet been agreed by both Houses), but it remains to be seen whether there will be any resulting changes to the government’s planned implementation timetable or the substance of the regulations that will set out the detail that will underpin many of the reforms contained in the Bill. Earlier this week, government representatives reportedly confirmed that the House of Commons will reject the non-government amendments proposed by the House of Lords, and that the timetable for the Bill remains the same and yesterday education secretary Bridget Phillipson told the TUC conference that the government will implement the Bill in full. 

It will be interesting to see what happens over the coming weeks and months. We will continue to keep you posted as things progress. 

If you would like to discuss how your organisation can prepare for the measures set out within the Employment Rights Bill, please get in touch.

Unions warn government not to water down workers' rights bill

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cq65l5epl3eo