Employment: reshaping rights

• The Employment Rights Bill 2024-25 comprises four distinct groups of measures.
• This article will focus on the provisions that give the Bill its short title: employment rights.

The Employment Rights Bill 2024-25 received its second reading in the House of Commons on 21 October. It will provide the framework for implementing plans outlined in the Labour Party’s June 2024 publication ‘Labour’s Plan to Make Work Pay: Delivering A New Deal for Working People’.

The proposals to reshape employment and related rights, which have received the lion’s share of the headlines about the Bill, are set out in parts 1 and 2, which take up around a third of the operative clauses.

Part 3 is concerned with establishing negotiating bodies for school support staff and adult social care. Part 4 addresses trade unions and industrial action, notably by repealing the majority of trade union legislation introduced by the last government. It will also enhance protection for workers taking industrial