Employment Edit: 09 October 2025

Legal Updates

Employment Rights Bill latest

A date has now been set for the House of Lords to consider the outstanding points in the Employment Rights Bill. On 28 October 2025, the House of Lords will consider whether to concede those of its amendments that were rejected by the House of Commons in September. It is likely that the House of Lords will concede these final few points (which we wrote about in our previous edition of Edit) and so the Bill is currently expected to proceed to Royal Assent in early November.

Indefinite leave to remain

Many employers will have been contacted by sponsored employees in recent months with questions about the government’s proposals to increase the standard qualifying period for settlement in the UK (known as ‘Indefinite Leave to Remain’) from 5 years to 10 years.

The government indicated earlier this year that individuals could have an opportunity to benefit from a reduced qualifying period based on ‘points-based contributions to the UK economy and society’. Last week, the Home Office published an update on these contribution-based settlement proposals. In this blog post, James Edmonds summarises what we know about these proposals so far and sets out some of the key questions that remain unanswered.

Criminal conduct and NDAs

New rules governing non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) came into force last week. From 1 October 2025, NDAs and confidentiality clauses are void in so far as they prevent victims from reporting criminal conduct or making several other types of disclosure related to such conduct.

Clauses are unenforceable where they prevent a victim, or a person who reasonably believes that they are a victim, from disclosing information to certain categories of people. This includes disclosures to:

• a person who has law enforcement functions to enable them to carry out those functions (for example, a disclosure to the police to enable them to investigate the criminal conduct);
• a qualified lawyer providing legal advice in relation to the criminal conduct; and
• victim support services or the victim’s child, parent or partner, for the purposes of obtaining support in relation to the criminal conduct.

Many confidentiality provisions (including those in contracts of employment and settlement agreements) will already contain carve-outs that permit employees to make some of the types of disclosure detailed in the new rules. Nevertheless, it is important for employers to carry out reviews of their confidentiality clauses to check that all the permitted disclosures are allowed.

Thought-leadership, themes and trends

Investigations: reaching conclusions and writing the report

We are thrilled that the final two instalments in our series of articles for People Management on the topic of workplace investigations have now been published. Check out both articles via the links below.

In the first, Katie Russell sets out her thoughts on how to assess the evidence and approach making recommendations. In the final article of the series, Victoria Newman shares her top tips on preparing the investigation report.