As it is still subject to changes in the House of Lords, the Employment Rights Bill will not become law before the autumn.
The Bill has now reached the report stage and will be discussed in two sessions: 14 July and 16 juillet. On 24 July, the House will rise for its summer break. Report Stage allows for more amendments to be made on the votes and measures taken.
The committee stage with its line by line examination of the Bill’s clauses was completed on Tuesday, this week, after 11 sessions.
The Bill must also be read a third time in the House before it can be passed. This is unlikely to happen until the beginning of September. The Lords have not yet allocated time for this.
The third reading is the time for further amendments (but not on anything that has been discussed before). This could mean that more time will be needed in the Commons to debate the matter, time that was not allocated prior to the recess of late July.
In a LinkedIn posting , employment law expert Darren Newman stated that he expects the Bill to be Royally Assented at the end or beginning of October.
Newman said that once the law is passed, “the fun begins” as the government will begin consulting on the regulations necessary to implement key measures.
Then we can see how well the government has planned out the details of its proposals and begin to predict when the individual measures are going into effect. Newman said that the next year will be an important one for employment laws.
When will the Employment Rights Bill be law?
Justin Madders, the Employment Rights Minister , said that there is no timetable to implement the Bill. He added that the majority of work needed was still in creating codes and secondary legislation.
Earlier this week, he announced to delegates attending the annual conference of the Recruitment and Employment Confederation(REC) that the government will release a road map in the second half of the year.
In the House of Lords peers raised concerns about key provisions, including bans on no-hour contracts and so called fire and rehire practice. There have been amendments to work-experience rules as well as the definition of harassment.
The Ministers have committed to extensive consultations on the regulations that will put into place the zero-hours ban and new protections from unfair dismissal.
Many of the detailed provisions in the Bill were subject to separate consultation. However, many business leaders, such as Rupert Soames CBI Chairman have stated that ministers haven’t listened to their concerns and haven’t shifted enough.
A detailed YouGov MRP survey published today suggests that a general election will result in a hung Parliament.
Reform UK’s representation would go from five to 271. Labour would have 178 (-233), Liberal Democrats would be 81 (+9) and the Tories only 46 (-75).
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