Employment Edit: 19 June 2025

Criminal conduct and NDAs

New rules governing non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) are set to come into force on 1 October 2025. These new rules will make NDAs and confidentiality clauses void in so far as they prevent victims from reporting criminal conduct or making several other types of disclosure related to such conduct.

Clauses will be 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 will include relevant 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.

Employers will need to ensure that any confidentiality provisions (including those in contracts of employment and settlement agreements) do not fall foul of these new rules. Many contracts will already contain carve-outs that permit employees to make some of the types of disclosure detailed in the new legislation but, before these rules come into force on 1 October 2025, it will be important for employers to carry out reviews to check that all the permitted disclosures are allowed under their confidentiality clauses. The government has issued guidance to help organisations navigate this change and we can of course assist as required.

Employment Rights Bill

Several amendments to the trade union recognition aspects of the Employment Rights Bill were agreed by the House of Lords last week. This included an amendment requiring the employer to provide the Central Arbitration Committee with specified information about workers in the relevant bargaining unit within five working days of being notified by the CAC that it has received an application for recognition from a trade union.

The House of Lords committee continues to scrutinise the Bill and consider proposed amendments. We will keep you posted on developments in Edit on an ongoing basis.

Manifesting a protected belief

The Supreme Court has refused permission to appeal in the Higgs v Farmor’s School case, which concerned the dismissal of an employee who expressed her protected philosophical beliefs in social media posts. The Court of Appeal’s decision, that the claimant’s dismissal amounted to unlawful discrimination on the grounds of religion and belief, will therefore stand. For more details on the Court of Appeal’s decision, read our summary here.

Redundancy – alternative employment

A recently published EAT judgment provides a helpful demonstration of the extent of an employer’s duty to consider alternative employment in a redundancy scenario.

The claimant, employed as a trainer of sales teams for the respondent’s car dealership, was selected for redundancy in 2020. He accepted that the redundancy situation was genuine and that the selection process was fair. However, he issued a claim for unfair dismissal alleging that the respondent had failed to adequately consider alternative employment.

The Tribunal agreed, upholding the claimant’s claim of unfair dismissal on the basis that the respondent had failed in its obligation to seek to avoid the claimant’s dismissal. In reaching its conclusion, the Tribunal noted that:

• He did not have access to internal email or the intranet during his notice period (as the respondent required him to return his laptop). He therefore only had the same access to job adverts as external applicants.
• The respondent did not provide the claimant with any assistance to apply for posts and did not suggest any posts to him.
• When rejecting the claimant’s applications for vacant sales roles, the respondent questioned his motivation for applying for such roles. This was despite the redundancy scenario and the claimant’s extensive experience in sales roles prior to his trainer role.

The EAT upheld the Tribunal’s judgment. The judgment underscores the need for employers to make reasonable efforts to look for alternative employment for employees at risk of redundancy. What is reasonable will depend on the employer’s size and resources but can include actively supporting redundant employees in reviewing vacancies and applying for roles during their notice period.

(Hendy Group v Kennedy)

Parental leave review

Last week, the Women and Equalities Committee published a report into statutory paternity and shared parental leave. The Committee described the UK’s parental leave system as ‘broken’ and detailed several issues with the system. The Committee has called on the government to address these issues in the full review of parental leave that it promised in the government’s ‘Next Steps to Make Work Pay’ document.

The report includes several recommendations for the government to consider as part of its review. These recommendations include increasing statutory paternity leave entitlement from two weeks to six weeks and simplifying and/or removing some of the eligibility rules for shared parental leave.