Employment Rights Bill: Proposals and Committee Amendments

After sitting for 11 committee debates to review the Employment Rights Bill, the Public Bill Committee has completed its review. It has reported the Bill with amendments to the House of commons on 21 January 2025. The Bill is now due to have its report stage and third reading in the House of Commons on a date to be confirmed – most likely within the next month, given the speed with which the Employment Rights Bill is progressing through the Parliamentary stages. 

The Public Bill Committee has listed all the amendments it has tabled to the Employment Rights Bill. The document dated 22 January 2025 makes for very interesting reading. The proposed amendments are listed in the order in which they are expected to be decided. This article considers some of the proposals.  Top of the list is “Domestic abuse victims’ leave.”

Domestic abuse victims’ leave

Within 12 months of the Employment Rights Bill becoming an Act of Parliament, the Secretary of State must make regulations entitling a worker who is a victim of domestic abuse to have the right to take leave from work. Domestic abuse is defined in the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 as the behaviour of a person (“A”) towards another person (“B”) where A and B are each aged 16 or over and are personally connected to each other, and the behaviour is abusive. 

It is expected that the leave would amount to at least 10 working days and that the employee will have the benefit of terms and conditions of employment which would have applied but for the absence. This could include terms relating to pay, but that is not clear at this stage. In addition to the provision of leave, a worker will have the right not to be subjected to any detriment by any act, or any deliberate failure to act, by their employer done on the ground that the worker has been or is suspected to have been a victim of domestic abuse or affected directly by domestic abuse.

Another proposal is the provision of an automatic unfair dismissal protection for dismissals where the reason for the dismissal is that the worker has been or is suspected to have been a victim of domestic abuse or affected directly by domestic abuse.

Employers will also have a duty to take all reasonable steps to prevent their workers from experiencing domestic abuse in the course of their employment. It is interesting that the focus here is on workers, not restricted to employees, thereby extending the protection to the wider category of workers, encompassing what the amendment refers to as “contract” workers.

Statutory discrimination questionnaires

Reinstatement of the statutory discrimination questionnaires to allow potential claimants to obtain information about potential workplace contravention of the Equality Act 2010.

The statutory discrimination questionnaires were abolished on 6 April 2014, in what the government at that time considered to be a necessity to reduce the burden on business. Individuals could still ask questions but there was no longer any obligation to respond, with no adverse inferences drawn from a failure to respond.

The proposal is that the statutory questionnaire would be reintroduced, allowing workers who think there has been a contravention of the Equality Act 2010 in relation to their employment or working practices to pose questions to their employer and in respect of which the responses are to be provided within a period of 8 weeks from the day on which the questions are served with responses admissible in evidence at any subsequent Employment Tribunal hearing. 

Protected paternity or parental partner leave

Another proposal is that within 6 months of the Employment Rights Bill becoming law, the Secretary of State must consult on the introduction of protected paternity or parental partner leave for all employees, with regulations subsequently being brought within 12 months of the Employment Rights. 

The consultation must consider the minimum duration for a period of protected paternity or parental partner leave and how best to ensure that the leave is protected, “non-transferable”, and does not result in discrimination against the employee seeking to take the leave. Regulations to introduce the new protection should be introduced within 12 months of the Employment Rights Bill becoming law.

Paternity leave would also be extended from 2 weeks to 6 weeks.

Significant extension in the protection for carers

The concept of “caring” is proposed as a protected characteristic under the Equality Act 2010. Caring is defined to include the provision or intention of person A to provide care to person B with a long-term care need, where person B is a spouse, civil partner, child, or parent of person A or lives in the same household as person A or reasonably relies on person A to provide or arrange care.

A long-term care need is defined to include an illness or injury (whether physical or mental) that requires or is likely to require care for more than three months, has a disability under the Equality Act 2010 or requires care for a reason connected with old age.

Caring is also defined to include that provided as voluntary work as well as under or by virtue of a contract. 

Paid carers leave is also proposed where currently the entitlement is one week’s unpaid leave to provide or arrange care in each rolling 12-month period.

Kinship Care

Kinship care is described as an arrangement where a child is raised by a friend, relative or extended family member other than a parent. 

As well as including more formalised care arrangements, it includes any other arrangement where a child is cared for and provided with accommodation in their own home by a relative of the child, or a person who is not a parent of the child but who has parental responsibility for the child and where the arrangement has lasted or is intended to last at least 28 days – described as a private family arrangement. 

With no time specified, the proposal is that regulations would be made to entitle an employee to have time off work if the kinship care arrangement is intended to last a year and until the child being cared for attains the age of 18.  During their time off, their contract of employment (save for remuneration terms) would continue, with the employee being entitled to return from leave to a job of a kind prescribed by regulations. 

Extending the circumstances in unfair dismissals

Extending the circumstances in which an employee is considered as unfairly dismissed after making a protected disclosure.

Currently, in seeking to establish an automatic fair dismissal for whistleblowing, it must be established that the protected disclosure was the reason (or principal reason) for the dismissal. The amendment proposed would change this to simply needing to be one of the reasons for the dismissal, thereby making it easier for the employee to establish.

In summary, many of the proposals are new concepts; some, however, seek to bring back procedures that were abolished years ago. The underlying focus is on expanding worker protection, rather than considering how the proposals might impact businesses, a point that may come up during the consultations - if they get that far!

The next debate in the House of Commons will be one to watch for those of us following the progression of the Employment Rights Bill closely. We will keep you updated as matters progress.