Welcome to the Autumn Employment Law Update. The Employment Law Update provides the legal notices that HR Professionals need to be kept aware of. If you want to ensure you don’t miss the latest Employment and HR you can subscribe to our Employment Law Update Newsletter.
Employment Rights Bill timeline
The Employment Rights Bill is advancing through Parliament and is expected to become law in autumn 2025. The bill is expected to return to the House of Lords on 28 October 2025, and if the House of Lords accept the House of Commons’ changes, the Bill will then go back to the House of Commons for royal assent. Implementation will be phased, with some changes taking place soon after royal assent and others in 2026 and 2027. The changes coming in the near future are:
2025 Reforms (coming soon after Royal Assent)
- Repeal of the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act 2023
- Repeal of most of the Trade Union Act 2016
- Removal of the 10-year ballot requirement for trade union political funds
- Simplified rules for industrial action and ballot notices
- Greater protection from dismissal for employees participating in industrial action
April 2026
- Day one paternity leave and unpaid parental leave rights
- Expanded access to Statutory Sick Pay – removal of the lower earnings limit and 3-day waiting period
- Fair Work Agency body established
- Simplified trade union recognition process
- Electronic balloting
- Doubling the maximum period for collective redundancy protective awards
- Enhanced whistleblowing protections
- Gender Pay Gap and menopause action plans will be introduced on a voluntary basis and required from 2027
October 2026
- Fire and rehire
- Bringing forward regulations to establish the Fair Pay Agreement, Adult Social Care Negotiating Body
- Procurement – two-tier code
- Tightening tipping law
- Duty to inform workers of their right to join a trade union
- Strengthen trade unions’ right of access
- Requiring employers to take “all reasonable steps” to prevent sexual harassment of their employees
- Introducing an obligation on employers not to permit the harassment of their employees by third parties
- New rights and protections for trade union reps
- Employment tribunal time limits
- Extending protections against detriments for taking industrial action
Continuing fall-out from the Supreme Court’s judgment in the case of For Women Scotland Ltd v The Scottish Ministers.
Key takeaways:
- There continues to be a fall out from the Supreme Court’s judgment which affects employers’ obligations to provide facilities;
- Employers need to be careful in their provision of facilities to ensure that these both (1) do not fall foul of the obligation to provide single-sex facilities and (2) do not disadvantage trans persons.
In April 2025, the Supreme Court handed down a judgment in the above-case where they held that the terms “man”, “woman” and “sex” in the Equality Act 2010 refer to a biological man, a biological woman and biological sex. On 25 April 2025, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) published interim guidance on the practical implications of the judgment. In respect of workplaces, the Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992 set out that:
- Employers must provide suitable and sufficient toilet facilities which must be for single-sex use except where each toilet is in a separate room with a door lockable from the inside;
- In some circumstance, employers may need to provide suitable and sufficient changing facilities which must provide for separate single-sex use facilities or separate use of the facilities by men and women; and
- In some circumstances, employers may need to provide suitable and sufficient washing facilities which must be for single-sex use, except where they are provided in a room with a door capable of being locked from the inside and each such room is intended to be used by only one person at a time.
The EHRC interim guidance says that this is to be read as meaning that trans women should not be permitted to use women’s facilities and trans men should not be permitted to use men’s facilities as this will mean they are no longer single-sex facilities. The guidance further provides that:
- In some circumstances trans women should not be permitted to use men’s facilities and trans men should not be permitted to use women’s facilities;
- Where facilities are mixed-sex use, trans people should not be put in a position where there are no facilities for them to use; and
- Where possible, mixed-sex facilities should be provided in addition to single-sex facilities.
Some individuals have now brought a judicial review against that interim guidance with one of their concerns being that the interim guidance puts trans persons at risk of being outed or singled out by their employers, which they say is a criminal offence under the Gender Recognition Act. A High Court hearing will take place in November and the individuals are seeking for elements of the interim guidance to be quashed or, alternatively, a declaration that certain legislative and regulatory provisions referenced in the interim guidance are incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights.
You can read our breakdown of the For Women Scotland Ltd v The Scottish Ministers here.
Case Law Updates
Raison v DF Capital Bank Ltd & Ors [2025] EAT 86
Key takeaways:
- It is important that parties are familiar with limitation periods and the mechanism by which Acas Early Conciliation “stops the clock”.
- For employees, bringing a claim past a limitation date will likely see their claim be dismissed as the Tribunal may not have jurisdiction to hear it.
- For employers, they should be aware of limitation rules to add a string to their bow in defending claims brought by employees.
Facts:
The employee’s employment was terminated on 17 February 2023. On 13 February 2023, prior to being terminated, the employee commenced Acas Early Conciliation. The employee had 3 months to bring her claim for limitation purposes and that limitation period is extended when an employee commences Early Conciliation.
The claim was brought on 30 May 2023 and the claim was struck out for having been brought after 3 months. The main question of the appeal is whether, in circumstances where Early Conciliation is commenced before the effective date of termination, is the limitation period extended by the entire time in which the claim is in Early Conciliation (including the days prior to the effective date of termination) or is it only extended by the number of days in the Early Conciliation period that occurred after the effective date of termination. If the employee can rely upon the whole Early Conciliation period then her claim was presented in time. If the employee can only rely on the days after the effective date of termination, then the claim was late by three days.
The Employment Appeal Tribunal held that the Early Conciliation only extends the limitation period by the number of days in the Early Conciliation period that occurred after the effective date of termination, so the employee’s claim was presented three days after the expiry of the limitation period. The employee’s claim was dismissed.
Khorram v Capgemini UK Plc [2025] (Case No: 6004705/2024)
Key takeaways:
- Where a disabled employee is referred to occupational health and a occupational health adviser recommends adjustments to be made, an employer should be careful to ensure that they do implement those adjustments which would be reasonable step to take to avoid the disadvantage suffered by that employee.
- Providing training sessions on ADHD to staff can constitute a reasonable adjustment.
Facts:
- The claimant was employed by Capgemini and had been diagnosed with ADHD. This diagnosis was not disclosed to the employer during the application process or at the commencement of her employment.
- During her probation, the claimant was set numerous objectives and was to present her progress to her line manager in September 2023. She emailed her line manager at 1:57am on the day of the scheduled presentation to ask for the topics to be reduced or for the event to be postponed. The line manager responded to ask her to give an overview of the topics but the claimant instead cancelled the meeting.
- A few days later, the claimant disclosed her ADHD diagnosis to her line manager and, at a later meeting, revealed that she was now on medication which was causing her anxiety and challenges with the probation objectives.
- The claimant attended an appointment with occupational health who suggested a list of potential adjustments to the employer. These adjustments included:
- Neurodiversity awareness training for staff and managers;
- Making probation goals realistic and achievable;
- Coaching sessions to support the claimant; and
- Coaching suggestions between the claimant and her line manager to improve communication and collaboration.
- These adjustments were not implemented and the Tribunal found that these amounted to failures to make reasonable adjustments and that had they been implemented they would have relieved the substantial disadvantage suffered by her in respect of multi-tasking and deadlines.
For further advice on recent employment law changes please contact the employment team at employment@dtmlegal.com or call 01244 354 800 / 0151 321 0000. Visit our Employment Law Services page for more information on how we can support both businesses and individuals.
