Deadlock is broken – Employment Rights Bill passes

Conservative peers – who have been blocking the legislation for weeks – have finally stepped aside. The bill will now quickly receive Royal Assent and become law.  

This means that millions will benefit from day one sick pay for all from April 2026. If the Bill had been delayed beyond Christmas, the whole implementation timetable would have been pushed back and workers would have missed out on the first tranche of rights coming into force in April.  

What will the Bill do for working people?

The Employment Rights Bill will deliver a transformational and long overdue upgrade to workers’ rights, tackling the low pay, insecure employment model that festered and thrived under the previous Conservative government. One in nine of the workforce is stuck in insecure work, including one million on zero hours contracts. The banning of exploitative zero hours contracts means many of these workers can now expect greater job security with an automatic right to new guaranteed hours contracts.  

Other new key rights include sick pay for all, expanding parental and bereavement leave, strengthening protections for pregnant women, whistleblowers and victims of sexual harassment, repealing Tory anti-union laws, ensuring union access to workplaces, establishing a social care fair pay agreement – these are just some of the watershed measures this Bill will now deliver. 

Enforcement of employment rights will be improved with a new Fair Work Agency established to protect the most vulnerable workers. And employment tribunal limits will be extended so that workers have longer to prepare and bring claims where they have been treated unlawfully.

No longer an outlier

The Employment Rights Bill will bring the UK closer to the European mainstream. The UK has been an outlier on workers’ rights with insecure work rife in every corner of the country.  

Economic boost

This huge upgrade in workers' rights is not just good for workers, but good for the economy too - more money in the pockets of workers means more spending in our local shops and high streets. 

Recent TUC analysis showed the wider benefits of the Bill at £10.4 billion. This is significantly more than the costs, which have previously been estimated at between £0.9bn and £5bn. Updated government analysis expected shortly could even show even more significant benefits from the legislation.  

Public support  

A recent poll by Hope not Hate found that key measures in the Employment Rights Bill are virtually universally popular, right across the political spectrum. Nearly 8 in 10 (78%) support employers having to offer zero-hours contract workers a guaranteed-hours contract (based on the hours they usually work) after 12 weeks. More than three-quarters (76%) of the public support workers having sick pay from day one. Over 8 in 10 (83%) support stopping employers from firing their workers and rehiring them on lower pay or worse terms and conditions.

Next steps

It’s now vital that workers start feeling the benefits of this legislation in their lives as soon as possible. That means the legislation must be implemented in full, and at speed – with watertight secondary legislation to ensure there are no loopholes for bad bosses to exploit.

Unions and workers have long campaigned for these vital rights. Together, we have broken a decades long economic status quo defined by insecurity, weak rights and poor pay. 

Working people will enjoy more security, better pay and dignity at work thanks to this Bill, from now and for years to come.