Last updated 23rd October 2025

We’ve created this tracker to keep you up to date with all the latest developments in Employment & Immigration law – please bookmark it to make sure you don’t miss our latest posts. You can see what’s on the horizon at a glance by clicking on the video or use the links below to see a summary of the current status.

Please note that this material has been published for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice.

Recent Updates

• For Women Scotland Ltd v The Scottish Ministers [2025] UKSC 16 

Key Legislation

• Employment Rights Bill
• Football Governance Act 2025
• Equality (Race and Disability) Bill
• Legislation to limit the length of non-competes
• Paternity Leave (Bereavement) Act 2024

Key cases

• Allison Bailey v Stonewall Equality Ltd & Others: [2024] EAT 119
• Mr F Ngole v Touchstone Leeds: 1805942/2022
• Dr D Miller v University of Bristol: 1400780/2022
• Mr W Augustine v Data Cars Ltd: [2024] EAT 117
• Equity and others v Talent Systems Europe Ltd (t/a Spotlight) [2025] EWHC 2254 (KB) 

The UK Supreme Court has unanimously ruled in the case of For Women Scotland Ltd v The Scottish Ministers [2025] UKSC 16 that the legal definition of “woman” and “sex” under the Equality Act 2010 refers to biological sex and not gender identity or acquired gender status through a Gender Recognition Certificate. We are currently awaiting updated EHCR guidance for employers following the outcome of this case and will be publishing our own further considerations on the practical steps employers may need to take following this decision.

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The government’s Employment Rights Bill (ERB) will implement 28 employment law reforms, including:

• establishing day-one rights for unfair dismissal (subject to a new statutory probationary period), as well as for paternity, parental and bereavement leave;
• zero-hours workers will be entitled to guaranteed hour contracts reflecting hours worked;
• “fire and rehire” practices will be restricted by making it automatically unfair to dismiss an employee for refusing to agree to contractual variations (unless an employer can show evidence of financial difficulties and demonstrate that the need to change the contractual terms was “unavoidable”);
• minimum service levels legislation and parts of the Trade Union Act 2016 will also be repealed;
• flexible working will be made the default for all, unless an employer can prove it is unreasonable; and
• large employers will be required to create equality action plans addressing gender pay gaps and to support employees through the menopause.

On 27 January 2025, the government published an updated version of the ERB. The (eclectic) range of amendments includes:

• most significantly, an increase in the employment tribunal limitation periods for bringing claims to six months, double the current three-month limit for most claims;
• increased protections for zero-hour workers where if an employer rescinds a guaranteed hours offer, it must serve detailed notice to the worker;
• provisions to promote the adoption of international agreements in maritime employment and improve seafarers’ wages and working conditions;
• ensuring that trade unions cannot access any part of a dwelling used for business purposes without a warrant; and
• regulations around intelligence officers’ duty to (or more accurately not to) disclose confidential information.

Throughout March and April, further amendments were introduced as the ERB continues its journey though the parliamentary process, which included (but were not limited to):

• a higher threshold being introduced when employers are making redundancies at more than one establishment;
• extending the right to guaranteed hours and reasonable notice of shifts to agency workers as well as including new provisions allowing for a collective agreement to opt out of these rights if alternative terms are agreed upon; and
• affording zero-hour and low-hour workers additional protections, including expanding the categories of automatically unfair dismissal to include dismissals where the reason for dismissal is that the employer has incorrectly given the employee notice, withdrawing a guaranteed hours offer in specified circumstances.

The government has also issued a number of responses in relation to ongoing consultations which were introduced last year in respect of the Employment Rights Bill. The key takeaways from these responses are as follows:

• increasing the maximum protective award for failure to collectively consult to 90 days’ pay to 180 days’ pay to disincentivise employers from seeking to simply buy out employees’ rights;
• amongst other changes, extending the mandate for industrial action following a ballot from six months to 12 months and reducing the notice period that unions must provide before strike action from 14 days to 10 days; and
• opening up statutory sick pay (SSP) and scrapping the four-day waiting period for SSP, so employees will be entitled to SSP from day one of sickness.

In early July 2025, the government published a roadmap for implementing the ERB, clearly outlining the timeline for upcoming consultations which include the following:

• Summer / Autumn 2025: Giving employees protection from unfair dismissal from ‘day 1’, including on the dismissal process the statutory probation period.
• Autumn 2025: A package of trade union measures (including electronic balloting and workplace balloting, simplifying trade union recognition processes, duty to inform workers of their right to join a trade union, and, right of access); fire and rehire; regulation of umbrella companies; bereavement leave; rights for pregnant workers; and ending the exploitative use of Zero Hours Contracts.
• Winter 2025 / Early 2026: Further trade union measures including protection against detriments for taking industrial action and blacklisting; collective redundancy; and flexible working.

The roadmap also sets out when the planned measures will likely take effect. According to the roadmap, we can expect to see the following:

• April 2026: the introduction of electronic balloting for trade unions and simplification of the trade union recognition process, the creation of the Fair Work Agency, statutory sick pay reforms, day-one rights to unpaid parental leave and paternity leave, and an increase in the collective redundancy protective award.
• October 2026: the ban on fire and re-hire, implementing the duty to inform workers of their right to join a trade union as well as strengthening trade unions’ right of access and extending protections for trade union reps and against detriments for taking industrial action, the extension of tribunal time limits to six months, and the new requirements for employers to take all reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment, including third-party harassment.
• 2027 (which includes some “big hitters” from an employment law perspective): the day-one right to protection from unfair dismissal, changes to zero-hour contracts, flexible working, collect redundancy thresholds, bereavement leave, gender pay gap and menopause action plans, rights for pregnant workers, industrial relations framework, regulation of umbrella companies, and introducing a power to enable regulations to specify steps that are to be regarded as “reasonable” to determine whether an employer has taken all reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment.

On 7^th September, a government reshuffle was triggered by Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner MP’s resignation. This resignation, and the subsequent reshuffle, meant that three key people involved with the ERB no longer held their positions in Government. Angela Rayner MP, Justin Madders MP (in the House of Commons) and Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (in the House of Lords) were all key voices in the implementation of the ERB, with the latter two being key ministers in the steering of the Bill.

In light of this, Peter Kyle MP, the new Business Secretary, has since stated at the Labour Party Conference that he will implement the ERB in full.

On 15^th September 2025, following the Committee Stages in both Houses, the House of Commons rejected all non-government amendments proposed by the House of Lords. A House of Commons Committee provided reasons for the rejection of each amendment, in particular:

• A proposal to retain the six-month qualifying period for unfair dismissal was rejected, as day-one protection is considered appropriate. It was also a government manifesto commitment to implement a day-one right to claim unfair dismissal.
• A proposal to replace the duty on employers to offer guaranteed hours contracts with a right for workers to request them was rejected, as workers meeting the qualifying criteria should receive a guaranteed hours offer.
• A proposal to define “short notice” for cancelled shifts as 48 hours was rejected, as it would pre-empt a planned consultation and limit government discretion.
• A proposal to allow employees to be accompanied at hearings by a “certified professional companion” was rejected due to concerns about increased cost, complexity, and duration of such hearings.
• A proposal to retain the 50% turnout threshold for industrial action ballots was rejected, as removing the threshold is considered appropriate.
• A proposal to regulate extending whistleblower dismissal protections and requiring mandating that employers investigate protected disclosures was rejected, as the measures were considered inappropriate.

For those interested in learning more, you can find our suite of articles on the Employment Rights Bill here,  here, here, here and here.

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Key points

The Football Governance Act (FGA) establishes a new independent football regulator (IFR) for men’s football in England, granting it authority to (among other things) review the financial strategies of clubs, mandate that potential owners and directors undergo a series of assessments to prove their suitability as club custodians, and prohibit English clubs from participating in breakaway competitions such as the European Super League. The IFR will also publish a code of practice regarding the corporate governance of regulated clubs, including their approach to equality, diversity and inclusion. As part of mandatory licence conditions, the FGA now requires English football clubs to publish details of their equality, diversity and inclusion efforts as part of their corporate governance statement.

If you would like to read more about the FGA, our Sports team have written a blog post about it here.

Date of entry into force

21 July 2025.

Key points

Announced in the King’s Speech 2024, the draft Equality (Race and Disability) Bill aims to introduce a statutory right to equal pay for ethnic minorities and disabled people – making it easier to challenge pay disparities due to ethnicity or disability – and extend pay gap reporting, requiring employers with 250 or more employees to disclose pay gaps related to ethnicity and disability.

Date of entry into force

TBC. The Bill is expected to progress more slowly than the Employment Rights Bill due to extensive consultation.

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Key points

The previous Conservative government had confirmed that it would introduce a statutory limit on the length of non-compete clauses of 3 months and bring forward legislation to introduce the statutory limit “when parliamentary time allows”. It is now unclear when (and if!) the Labour government will take this forward.

Date of entry into force

TBC.

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The Paternity Leave (Bereavement) Act received Royal Assent on 24 May 2024. The Act makes provisions about paternity leave in cases where a mother, or a person with whom a child is placed or expected to be placed for adoption, dies.

Although not set out in the Act itself, there is also an intention for additional regulations to provide for a bereaved father or partner to have 52 weeks’ paternity leave available during the first year of their child’s life, from the day on which the mother or primary adopter of the child has died.

Date of entry into force

Regulations are needed to bring the Act into force.

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Allison Bailey v Stonewall Equality Ltd & Others: [2024] EAT 119

Ms Bailey, a barrister, successfully claimed at first instance that she suffered discrimination and victimisation by her Chambers because of her gender critical philosophical beliefs that women are defined by biological sex rather than gender identity and that gender theory, as promoted by Stonewall, is severely detrimental to women and lesbians. The EAT upheld the decision but dismissed all other claims put forward by Ms Bailey regarding lost income and work opportunities. The ET and EAT also dismissed Ms Bailey’s claims against Stonewall, namely that it had caused or induced Garden Court Chambers to discriminate against her. The case is scheduled to be heard in the Court of Appeal on 21 or 22 October 2025.

Mr F Ngole v Touchstone Leeds: 1805942/2022

The ET considered whether withdrawing a conditional job offer from Mr Ngole, a Christian mental health support worker, amounted to discrimination, particularly since many of his employer’s clients identified as LGBTQI+ and Mr Ngole had made negative remarks about homosexuality on social media. The ET concluded that the initial decision to rescind the job offer constituted direct discrimination, but dismissed Mr Ngole’s remaining claims. The case is due to be heard by the EAT on 29 October 2025.

Dr D Miller v University of Bristol: 1400780/2022

Dr Miller, a university professor dismissed for gross misconduct tied to his anti-Zionist comments, successfully claimed direct belief discrimination and unfair dismissal. The Employment Tribunal recognized his anti-Zionist beliefs as protected under the Equality Act 2010, ruling that his dismissal was unreasonable and discriminatory. The University’s appeal will be heard by the EAT by November 2025.

Mr W Augustine v Data Cars Ltd: [2024] EAT 117

Mr Augustine, a part-time private hire driver, claimed unfair treatment due to a flat-rate fee applied equally to all drivers, which disproportionately impacted his earnings compared to full-time drivers. While the EAT acknowledged this disparity, it upheld the ruling that the treatment was not solely due to his part-time status under the “sole reason” test. The Court of Appeal further upheld the EAT’s decision that a narrow causation test applies to discrimination against part-time workers where the claimant’s part-time status is the sole reason for the less favourable treatment. The Court of Appeal granted permission for Mr Augustine to appeal to the Supreme Court.

Equity and others v Talent Systems Europe Ltd (t/a Spotlight): [2025] EWHC 2254 (KB) 

In a novel case dealing with the rarely litigated Employment Agencies Act 1973, the High Court held that Spotlight, which provides an online talent directory as a marketing tool for individuals in the performing arts industry, is not an employment agency and does not provide services for the purposes of finding persons employment with employers or of supplying employers with employment by them. Wiggin acted on behalf of Spotlight in respect of this action so, for those interested in learning more, we’ve prepared a short summary of proceedings to date in our Autumn edition of Worked Up.