Major changes to Employment Rights Bill to be made at report stage

The Government has now put together over 200 pages of amendments that will be considered at the Bill’s report stage on 11 and 12 of March. Many of these arise from responses to five separate consultations on employment law reforms, which were published on 4 March.

Significant Government amendments to the current version of the Employment Rights Bill include:

• Adding a new schedule which sets out the framework for applying the Bill’s zero hours contract measures to agency workers
• Extending and re-working the amendments to the compulsory union recognition regime already included in the Bill
• Doubling the maximum period covered by a protective award (payable for breach of collective consultation requirements) from 90 to 180 days. However, proposals to introduce a new right to claim interim relief where these requirements are breached have been dropped
• Fixing the rate of SSP for lower paid employees at 80% of weekly earnings
• Making provision for the regulation of umbrella companies

There are also numerous amendments being put forward by individual MPs. However, judging by what happened during the Bill’s committee stage, few if any of these amendments are likely to be passed.

Our content explained