The Government has published a consultation on the implementation of its reforms to zero and low hours contracts.

Reforms in this area have long been a central element of the Government’s agenda and feature within the landmark Employment Rights Act 2025, which includes among its many provisions:

• a right to guaranteed hours, where the number of hours offered reflects the hours worked by a qualifying worker during a reference period;
• a right to reasonable notice of shifts; and
• a right to payment for shifts cancelled, curtailed, or moved at short notice.

However, like many aspects of the Act, the precise details of how the new law will operate are left to the drafting of Regulations, which will be informed by consultation with employers and workers alike, making it all the more important that interested stakeholders engage with the consultation.

The consultation paper is a lengthy document, exploring a range of options for how the legislation should be implemented. In the case of the right to guaranteed hours, it considers, for example, both the ‘hours threshold’ below which the right arises (the Government proposes between 8 to 20 hours per week), and the length of the ‘initial reference period’ which will inform the guaranteed hours offer calculated by employers (recommended as a period of 12 weeks).

As for the right to reasonable notice of shifts, the consultation explores how much notice should be presumed reasonable for directly engaged workers (with options ranging from 1 to 4 weeks), the factors that should affect an employment tribunal’s determination of whether notice was reasonable, and whether certain types of hirers should be excluded from the duty to provide reasonable notice.

On the matter of payment for shifts cancelled, moved, or curtailed at short notice, the consultation invites views on what should amount to ‘short notice’ for both directly engaged and agency workers, how the amount of payment should be calculated, and whether employers should be exempt from the requirement to make a payment in certain circumstances

Finally, the consultation also reveals that the Government is exploring whether to introduce a ‘very short notice’ period which will require an even higher amount to be paid in the event of particularly short notice cancellations, movements and curtailments.

The consultation closes on 15 August 2026, and can be read in full here.