Employment Edit: 9 July 2026

Legal updates

Trade union access

Earlier this week, the government published its response to the consultation into the draft code of practice on trade unions’ right of access. Under the new right of access, unions can seek access to a workplace for the purposes of meeting, recruiting or organising workers or facilitating collective bargaining. Access rights will be set out in enforceable ‘access agreements’, with such agreements either agreed between the employer and trade union or, where the union and employer are unable to agree, being determined by the Central Arbitration Committee (CAC).

With the new right set to come into force in October this year, the government has made several changes to the code of practice and has passed the final draft code, together with regulations detailing the new right of access framework, to Parliament. These changes to the code include:

• Clearer guidance on how access agreements should operate across multiple workplaces and in different workplace settings.
• A clearer explanation of the circumstances in which access may reasonably be refused, and how existing arrangements should be taken into account.

We’re taking a closer look at the consultation response and the updated code and will be bringing you more detail on this shortly. For more guidance on how to prepare for the new right in the meantime, don’t forget to look at our blog post which considered the draft code.

Industrial action detriments

Sticking with the industrial relations theme, earlier this month the government confirmed the scope of a new right for workers not to be subjected to detriments for taking industrial action.
 
In 2024, the Supreme Court determined in the case of Secretary of State for Business and Trade v Mercer that, under existing legislation, workers do not have statutory protection against sanctions short of dismissal where they take part in lawful strike action during working hours. The Supreme Court went on to find that the failure to protect workers in this way is incompatible with Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which protects freedom of assembly and association and incorporates the right to strike.
 
To correct this, the ERA 2025 contains a new right for workers not to be subjected to “detriment of a prescribed description” by their employer where the sole or main purpose of the detriment is to prevent or deter the worker from taking protected industrial action or penalise them for doing so. Having consulted on two options for its approach to defining “detriment of a prescribed description”, the government has now responded to the consultation and issued draft regulations which prohibit all detriments for taking industrial action. This protection is set to take effect from 30 October 2026.

Holiday pay enforcement

Last week, the government launched a new consultation into holiday pay compliance and enforcement. 

A new single enforcement body, the Fair Work Agency (FWA), was established in April 2026 to enforce certain employment law rights, including National Minimum Wage (NMW). The FWA brings together several existing enforcement bodies and powers, in order to create a single point of contact so that workers know where to go for help.

The ERA 2025 includes provisions which would enable the FWA to investigate compliance with holiday pay requirements and to take enforcement action where necessary. To date, where a worker thinks that they have been underpaid holiday, the only route for them to pursue this has been through a tribunal or civil court claim (potentially with the support of their trade union). The consultation launched last week explores which aspects of holiday pay compliance the FWA will enforce and how it will go about enforcing it. The government’s proposals include the following:

• The FWA would only enforce statutory holiday entitlement, meaning that any entitlement to additional holiday over and above the statutory minimum holiday requirements would be outside of the FWA’s remit. 
• The claim period for FWA enforcement of holiday pay would be set at six years, aligning with the NMW enforcement regime and the statutory requirement (introduced in April 2026) for employers to keep six years’ worth of holiday records. The FWA will not be able to enforce holiday pay underpayments which occurred prior to the date on which the ERA 2025 received Royal Assent, 18 December 2025. 
• Organisations found to have underpaid holiday pay may be named by the FWA, in a similar way to the public naming by the Department for Business and Trade of those organisations which have underpaid the NMW. 

The consultation is set to close on 22 September 2026.