Key Changes Ahead: Latest Planned Amendments to the Employment Rights Bill

This month, the government published a list of planned amendments to its Employment Rights Bill.

The Bill has been an important part of this government’s policy. It has been described by Unison, the public service union, as a "game changer".

Details of the proposed changes and the Bill’s progress were reported in our earlier blogs in October and November.

The planned amendments include:

• Banning NDA's which cover harassment and discrimination at work. Any clause in an agreement, including a settlement agreement or an employment contract, which purports to prevent an employee or worker from making disclosures relating to harassment or discrimination would be void. In the event that the amendment is made, employers will have to consider whether their existing documents might breach this provision. Confidentiality obligations could become void. Resultant litigation could carry with it reputational damage.
• Changes in respect of “fire and rehire”. The government indicated that it would ban employers from dismissing employees for refusing to agree to a change to their contractual terms. Any such dismissal would be automatically unfair, unless certain very stringent conditions were met. It appears that the ban will be relaxed, although details as to exactly what amendments will be made is not yet clear. Perhaps most likely is that the ban would only apply to specified types of contract variation.
• There are proposed amendments in relation to the new whistleblowing provisions. There are also suggested amendments to soften the provisions in the Bill which seek to limit the use of zero-hour contracts. However, at present these are not government amendments.

We will endeavour to keep you informed of further changes to this huge piece of groundbreaking legislation.

This is not legal advice; it is intended to provide information of general interest about current legal issues.