Employment Rights Bill fails to clear final Parliamentary hurdle

Last night (28 October) the House of Lords declined to accept all the amendments to the Bill passed in the Commons last month. That means that the Bill failed to complete the final step in the Parliamentary process, and “ping pong” continues.

While the gap between the Commons and Lords has narrowed, there remain three important points of difference:

• Unfair dismissal rights: the Lords have reinstated amendments to the Bill that they passed earlier this year, which would mean replacing day one unfair dismissal rights with a six months’ qualifying period.
• Zero-hours contracts: the Lords are insisting on an opt out from the right to be offered a guaranteed hours contract, though they have revised the wording of the relevant amendment.
• Industrial action ballots: the Lords have passed an amendment which would mean the Bill will not repeal the 50% turnout requirement. This was introduced by the Conservative Government in 2017 and our current Government is committed to abolishing it. 

We don’t know yet when the Employment Rights Bill will return to the Commons for the second time during ping pong stage. While they may be willing to make some further concessions, it is most unlikely that they will accept all the Lords’ amendments. That means that the Bill would then need to return to the Lords once more, so that the final version can be agreed by both Houses of Parliament.

It is still possible that the Bill will complete the Parliamentary process and receive Royal Assent by the end of November, as had been widely anticipated. However, an additional delay would not necessarily be enough to derail the Government’s implementation timetable (see our earlier blog here for more details).