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10 March 2025. This article is in progress.

To bring you the latest updates on the Employment Rights Bill, below and its implications for Business and employers.

You can find a more detailed briefing note on the ERB in our article “What the Employment Rights Bill means for Employers and HRs.

Latest increases announced in Autumn 2024 to the statutory payments for time off work and the National Minimum wage rate increases coming in April 2025 are below.

Latest updates on the Employment Rights Bill 2025

Numerous additional amendments and consultation responses were published on 5th March 2025. The sum total of which show the Government sadly failing to listen to the concerns of Business, SMEs in particular and the hospitality sector especially.

5th March 2025: the Government released yet another 200+ pages of amendments to the Bill following early consultations on collective consultation, Fire and Rehire, Statutory Sick Pay, and zero hours contracts for agency workers.

The Government will make collective consultation more likely since the 20 person threshold which starts collective consultation will apply across the whole business not jut at one workplace.

The Government has increased the cost to employers of breaching the enhanced Fire and Rehire protections for workers. Essentially employers in trouble, such as P&O, were able offer settlement payments to workers to “buy out” the workers’ 90 days pay protective award compensation. The Government has decided to double the protective award to 180 days pay.

The day 1 right to Statutory Sick Pay proposed in the Bill is definitely coming in. In addition the Government has confirmed that SSP will extend also to those earning less than the Lower Earnings threshold. For these workers, SSP will be calculated at 80% of their normal weekly earnings, instead of the flat weekly rate. 

29th January 2025: Further amendments were published following the committee stage, including:  statutory paid leave of up 10 days for victims of domestic abuse, enhanced paid family and carers leave, proposals to double the weekly rates of statutory maternity, etc. and parental bereavement pay from £184.03 to £386.06. 

16th January 2025:  Amidst increasing dissent from UK businesses, the Employment Rights Bill passed the committee stage on its swift path through parliament. The government published more amendments in a further boost to workers rights and protections.  The most notable of these in November 2024, when the timeframe for bringing all types of employment tribunal claims was doubled from 3 to 6 months.


There is a huge amount of detail still to be filled in by supporting regulations (also known as statutory instruments), by consultations and by statutory codes of practice.

Once passed, there will be further consultations on (but much less parliamentary scrutiny of) the supporting regulations. The remaining consultations to happen this year are summarised on the timeline here. 

Action: Keep an eye here on the results of the consultations as they come out, by signing up to email alerts 
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