Employment Rights Bill – What’s Changing?
The Employment Rights Bill is being updated to modernise employment law so it better reflects today’s workplace. After further discussions, the government has chosen to prioritise changes around unfair dismissal protections to ensure the Bill can progress to Royal Assent on schedule.
Day One Rights: Paternity Leave & the Fair Work Agency
From January 2027, employees will gain several important day one rights, meaning they are entitled to these benefits from the moment they start their job:
- Statutory Paternity Leave and Pay from day one
- The launch of the new Fair Work Agency, aimed at supporting and enforcing fair treatment for workers
Unfair Dismissal – Major Changes
The government has also agreed a significant reform to unfair dismissal rules:
- The qualifying period to claim unfair dismissal will be reduced from 24 months to 6 months.
- Existing day one protections remain untouched—for example, protection against discrimination or dismissal on automatically unfair grounds.
- The government has committed that any changes to the qualifying period in future can only be made through primary legislation, adding stability and certainty.
- The cap on unfair dismissal compensation will also be lifted, strengthening protections further.
Further to this, it has recently been agreed that employees can get Day 1 SSP instead of the first 3 days being unpaid. The government have stated that they are committed to strengthen SSP by ensuring the safety of employees by making it available to everyone who needs it. The changes of SSP from April 2026 are in the table below:
