Are you ready for the Employment Rights Bill?

Flexible hours – goes live winter 2025/spring 2026.Flexible work requests can be refused on limited grounds but :

The employer will need to consult with the employee about the request and there will be a specific requirement to explain the rationale for a refusal and why that refusal is considered reasonable.

The government initially stated that it would ‘make flexible working the default’. Perhaps a more accurate description is that an employer will need to assume that flexible working requests should be approved, unless it is reasonable to refuse it. Whilst a relatively simple change, this is not insignificant. It will mean that employees can bring employment tribunal claims to challenge the reasonableness of their employers’ flexible working decisions, rather than simply for procedural breaches. However, it remains to be seen how ‘reasonableness’ will be determined by an employment tribunal.

Stronger duty to prevent sexual harassment - already in force

The new duty to take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment at work (in force from October 2024) will become a duty to take ‘all’ reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment.

For the time being, the Bill includes a list of reasonable steps which align with EHRC guidance including:

• carrying out assessments;
• publishing plans and policies;
• taking steps relating to the reporting of sexual harassment; and
• steps relating to the handling of complaints.

Employers may need to review and update harassment policies and provide comprehensive training to all staff, to ensure that their efforts to prevent harassment have been suitably exhaustive.

Third Party Harassment : April 2026 (whistleblowing protections) October 2026

(Requiring employers to take all reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment of their employees and introducing an obligation on employers not to permit the harassment of their employees by third Liability for harassment by third parties.

The provisions also cover protection from (all types of) harassment of any kind by third parties via a new requirement that employers must not permit third parties – such as customers, clients or contractors – to harass their employees.

An employer will be held liable for harassment if they fail to take all reasonable steps to prevent it from happening.

Disclosure of sexual harassment to become qualifying disclosure. A disclosure that ‘sexual harassment has occurred, is occurring or is likely to occur’ will now also become a qualifying disclosure for whistleblowing purposes.

Fire and Rehire : Clarity expected Autumn 2025

It will be automatically unfair for an employer to dismiss an employee for refusing to agree to a variation or because the employer intends to employ another person on varied terms to carry out substantially the same role.

This new restriction on fire and rehire applies unless the employer is facing financial difficulties affecting or likely to affect their ability to carry on the business as a going concern and the reason for the variation was to eliminate, prevent or significantly reduce, or significantly mitigate, the effect of those financial difficulties.

In order for this defence to apply, the employer must have not reasonably been able to avoid the need to make the variation. Once an employer successfully argues that serious financial difficulties justified the dismissal, the tribunal will revert to applying the standard reasonableness test under unfair dismissal law.

It will be automatically unfair to dismiss an employee with the intention of replacing them with someone who is not an employee (eg an agency worker or contractor), where the new person performs substantially the same duties. There are exceptions to this rule in circumstances where the reason for the replacement is to address financial difficulties of the employer and the employer could not reasonably have avoided the need to replace the employee. There are some new tests proposed specifically for public sector employers and local authorities specifically.

We will provide further updates as the Bill progresses, but please do get in touch with Jessica Gowar, Head of Employment on York 01904 716000, Wetherby 01937 583210 or Malton 01653 692247 who will be happy to help you adapt through the changes.

You may also be interested in joining our exclusive Employer Support scheme which is a cost effective method of managing your workplace and employment related issues.

Details may be found here:

https://www.warekay.co.uk/our-services/employment-law/employers-support-scheme