Millions of workers to get new rights to pay and leave from next year

The new Employment Rights Bill will bring in a number of new measures

Starting from next year, millions of workers will see a significant improvement in protections from day one of their employment, marking the most substantial reform in employment rights in decades.

Today, Parliament will be presented with landmark proposals for major changes to rules surrounding parental and bereavement leave, sick pay, and procedures for unfair dismissals as part of the new Employment Rights Bill.

Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner commented: "After years of stagnation under the Tories, we're replacing a race to the bottom with a race to the top, so employers compete on innovation and quality. It's by making work more secure and modernising workplaces that we will drive up productivity, improve living standards, generate jobs and investment, and pave the way for sustained economic growth that benefits working people."

Read more: BBC Breakfast star as to address glitch

Rayner also described how the Government is "calling a time on the Tories' scorched earth approach to industrial relations" through worker- and business-friendly reforms. The legislation intends to make flexible working practices standard and guarantee immediate eligibility for paternity, parental and bereavement leave.

In a crucial change, sick pay will become accessible from the initial day of illness, abolishing the current three-day wait period which often places financial pressure on employees. Approximately 30,000 additional fathers or partners will qualify for paternity leave, while nearly 1.5 million more parents will benefit from immediate, unpaid parental leave, reports the Mirror.

Under the proposed changes, an estimated 1.7 million individuals caring for family members are set to benefit from improved participation in the labour market.

The fresh legislation is poised to prohibit exploitative zero-hour contracts and assure secure working hours for over a million workers currently on uncertain contracts. Workers will be mandated notice for their shifts with protection on compensation if altered or cancelled.

Furthermore, firms will face a ban on the contentious fire and rehire strategies.

In a move that could affect around 9 million employees, reforms will see unfair dismissal laws overhauled by eliminating the two-year threshold for claims, and discussions are underway for a nine-month statutory probation period for newcomers, projected for a 2026 launch.

A novel Fair Work Agency is set to be established to safeguard holiday remuneration for the first instance and amplify statutory sick pay entitlements. Additional pledges, such as the right to disconnect, designed to prevent after-hours work interference, will utilise existing legislation.

Welcoming this development, trade union bodies have recognised it as a "seismic shift" from a status quo of inadequate wages and low productivity. TUC general secretary Paul Nowak expressed: "After 14 years of stagnating living standards, working people desperately need secure jobs they can build a decent life on."

"Whether it's tackling the scourge of zero-hours contracts and fire and rehire, improving access to sick pay and parental leave, or clamping down on exploitation - this Bill highlights Labour's commitment to upgrade rights and protections for millions. Driving up employment standards is good for workers, good for business and good for growth."

"While there is still detail to be worked through, this Bill signals a seismic shift away from the Tories' low pay, low rights, low productivity economy."

Matt Wrack, Fire Brigades Union general secretary, commented: "The banning of zero-hour contracts, the outlawing of fire and rehire, and other despicable working practices promoted by the Tories, are long overdue."

GMB general secretary Gary Smith added: "This is a significant and groundbreaking first step to giving workers the rights they've been denied for so long. Fourteen years of Conservative rule has seen squeezed pay packets and attacks on working people and their unions; this Bill is hugely welcome."

However, Tina McKenzie, Policy Chair at the Federation of Small Businesses, criticised the speed of the legislation's introduction: "This legislation is rushed job, clumsy, chaotic and poorly planned dropping 28 new measures onto small business employers all at once leaves them scrambling to make sense of it all."

"Beyond warm words, it lacks any real pro-growth element and will increase economic inactivity, seriously jeopardising the Government's own 80 per cent employment target. There are already 65,000 fewer payroll jobs since Labour took power, and the new Government is sending out a troubling signal to businesses and investors."