The Employment Rights Bill (ERB), the UK government’s flagship legislation for employment law reform, is continuing its passage through the parliamentary process to become law. Having grown and developed since first introduced in October 2024, yet more amendments were tabled on 7 July 2025. These come less than a week after the government published its roadmap providing an indicative timetable for consultation and implementation of the ERB (read more on our employment law watch blog) and will be debated during July.
To the extent the amendments are government-backed, they stand a good chance of going through. These include new provisions restricting the use of confidentiality provisions for silencing harassment and discrimination, amendments to soften the fire and rehire provisions, and an extension of bereavement leave rights to cover miscarriage.
Non-disclosure agreements (NDAs)
Whilst the government had promised a crackdown on NDAs, the ERB had previously been silent on reform in this area. Instead, the government had passed legislation, expected to apply from 1 August 2025, restricting the use of NDAs in relation to sexual misconduct, bullying, and harassment in higher education, and separate legislation, to take effect on 1 October 2025, affecting the enforceability of NDAs in England and Wales with individuals who are (or reasonably believe that they are) victims of crime.
The latest ERB amendments seek to change that by introducing a specific contractual restriction on using NDAs to prevent a worker from making an allegation or disclosure of information about work-related harassment and discrimination (although, interestingly, not in respect of a failure to make reasonable adjustments for a disabled person). Any such attempts to silence a worker would be void.
If passed, this is a significant shift for employers faced with discrimination and harassment allegations who will be unable to benefit from confidentiality provisions in return for negotiating a resolution. This may make employers more reluctant to explore settlement.
As changes to NDA rules were not previously part of the ERB, the roadmap is silent on whether there will be any consultation.
Fire and rehire
As the law currently stands, fire and rehire (i.e., the practice of dismissing an employee and offering them a new employment contract on new terms) is an established employment practice for changing terms and conditions of employment in the absence of consent, but perceived by the government as inherently unfair, they promised to ‘ban’ it.
Through the ERB, the original proposal was to essentially make the ‘fire’ of fire and rehire (or a fire and replace, which is where someone new is employed on the new terms) an automatically unfair dismissal if it is for the purposes of changing terms and conditions, except where the changes are necessary due to the business being in dire financial straits. This was a significant change for employers and in reality had the effect of prohibiting the lawful use of fire and rehire/replace for many employers who want to make changes but are not at the point of going under.
New government-backed amendments see a softening of the approach, with a distinction drawn between variations to contractual terms that are ‘restricted’ and those which are not.
The new proposed position is that using fire and rehire to make a restricted variation will be automatically unfair. There is a list of restricted variations set out in the amended provisions, which include variations to pay, hours, pensions, and time off. However, there is a general provision for regulations to add to or amend the list of restricted variations in time. As the list currently stand, changes to a place of work or to workplace duties are not restricted.
Anything not explicitly listed as being restricted is a non-restricted variation. Under the new proposals, changes to these through fire and rehire practices will be permitted, subject to usual unfair dismissal rules and consideration of a prescribed list of factors. These factors include the reason for the change, the consultation carried out, whether anything is offered to the employee in return for seeking consent, and anything else which may be later set out in regulations. These, of course, are the types of issues which might usually be looked at for unfair dismissal fairness considerations anyway but are now expressly referred to as relevant to the fairness of a fire and rehire dismissal.
The amendments also make it clear that it will be an automatically unfair dismissal where the reason for the ‘fire’ is to replace the employee with someone who is not an employee, e.g., an agency worker or self-employed contractor, to do substantially the same work and in circumstances where there is no cessation or diminution in the employer’s need for that work. There are exceptions where the replacement is to address serious financial difficulties (like the exception to fire and rehire restrictions) and where the employer could not reasonably have avoided the need to replace them. These new provisions are intended to stop employers like-for-like replacing employees with non-employees simply because it is cheaper or otherwise preferable for them to do so. It is currently unclear if the restrictions also extend to replacement by outsourcing but where TUPE does not apply to protect the employee’s employment.
Anti-avoidance measures are also considered. Employers planning to rely on more robust variation clauses should take heed – variation clauses intended to bypass the fire and rehire laws will be void if used to avoid the fire and rehire rules. Importantly, though, this will not apply retrospectively; variation clauses in place before the new rules take effect will be valid.
According to the roadmap, there will be a consultation on fire and rehire in autumn 2025. Given these substantial amendments, the consultation will be an important exercise for interested parties to have their say on the workability of the proposals. It is intended for final rules to apply from October 2026.
Bereavement leave – miscarriage
There is currently no general right to bereavement leave for employees who suffer loss, although there are existing parental bereavement rules providing a statutory right to two weeks of paid time off for employees in the event of the death of a child (including stillbirth after 24 weeks of pregnancy).
The ERB creates a general statutory right to bereavement leave for employees in the event of the death of a wider group of people (although the nature of the relationships to be covered will be set out in regulations at a later date), with the latest amendments seeking to ensure that the right applies where there is still birth or pregnancy loss before 24 weeks of pregnancy.
Whereas current statutory parental bereavement leave is paid (at the prescribed statutory rate), bereavement leave provisions under the ERB are silent on pay.
According to the roadmap, there will be a consultation on bereavement leave in autumn 2025, with new rules not taking effect until 2027.
In addition to these government-backed proposals, several more amendments have been put forward for debate. These include an overhaul of whistleblowing rules, simplification of the zero hours and guaranteed hours provisions, new statutory rights to leave where a child is seriously ill, statutory kinship care leave, and six months of non-transferable paternity leave. As amendments proposed by non-Labour members, these changes are perhaps less likely to be passed. We will monitor progress and provide more detail if they are. In the meantime, there is a live consultation (until 25 August 2025) seeking views on the current parental leave regime and how this might better support working families, and so reform in this area cannot be ruled out, even if it does not feature in the ERB.
