Minister for Employment Rights and Consumer Protection (): Our Plan to Make Work Pay
will modernise our employment rights legislation, extending the
employment protections already given by the best British
companies to millions more workers across the country.
Strengthening this underlying framework will help build an
economy based on fair competition between businesses, greater
productivity in the workplace, job security for workers, and fair
reward for hard work.
We are taking a phased approach to engagement and consultation on
these reforms. This will ensure all stakeholders have the time
and space to work through the detail of each measure and to help
us implement each in the interests of all.
Following the launch of consultations on Trade Union Recognition,
Fire and Rehire, Agency Work, Tipping, and Flexible Working
earlier this month, we are today launching consultations on Trade
Union Detriments and Collective Redundancy. Alongside a programme
of direct stakeholder engagement, these consultations will
support us in determining how best to put our plans into
practice.
Consultation 1: Trade Union Detriments
The Employment Rights Act 2025 establishes stronger protections
from detriments for workers taking industrial action, in order to
ensure they are treated fairly and respectfully. It prohibits the
use of ‘detriments of a prescribed description' for the sole or
main purpose of penalising, deterring or preventing a worker from
taking part in official industrial action.
The power in the Act enables the Government to make regulations
to either prohibit all detriments, or to prescribe the detriments
that are prohibited. The consultation will seek stakeholder views
on the benefits and challenges of these two options. It will run
for 8 weeks and close on 23 April 2026. Following consultation,
the Government will develop its final policy position with the
intention to make regulations and deliver the resulting policy by
October 2026.
Consultation 2: Collective Redundancy
The Government is consulting on the threshold number that will
trigger collective redundancy consultation where employers
propose to make large numbers of redundancies across their entire
organisation. We wish to set this number at a level which offers
protections for working people, while avoiding scenarios where
larger employers find themselves left in a constant state of
consultation.
The consultation seeks views on the methods which may be used to
set the threshold, and on the level at which the
organisation-wide threshold could be set. Specifically, it will
seek views on the proposed options, including their impact on
employers, the extent to which they protect employees, and
whether there are any other options for the threshold or method.
This consultation will run for 12 weeks and will close on 21 May
2026. Following the consultation, the Government will consider
the responses carefully before developing a final policy
position. Any changes will be delivered through secondary
legislation, with regulations expected to enter into force in
2027.
Next Steps for consultation
This package of consultations sets out the next steps in
delivering our plans. They are critical to shaping the practical
implementation of this legislation, helping the Government to
deliver reforms that are both effective and inclusive. It is in
everyone's interest to get the relationship between employer and
worker right. These consultations will help us make work pay for
both.
