Perhaps unsurprisingly, the parliamentary game of “ping pong” has begun with the House of Lords bouncing back the Employment Rights Bill to the House of Common as they remain unwilling to approve its current contents.

The House of Lords has focused on, and once again rejected, the following amendments made by the House of Commons:

• the introduction of day one rights for unfair dismissal (and, in turn, the introduction of a statutory probation period), with the House of Lords reiterating its requirement for this to be replaced with a six-month qualifying period;
• the proposed requirement for employers to offer a guaranteed hours contract to zero-hours; low-hour; and agency workers, with the House of Lords reiterating its opposition to this change and the preference for a worker’s right to request a guaranteed hours contract;
• the proposed reduction to the 50% turnout threshold for an industrial action ballot to be valid has been rejected with the House of Lord’s reiterating its requirement for this threshold to be retained; and
• the proposal that new trade union members should automatically pay into a political fund has also been rejected with the House of Lords requiring trade unions to opt out their members from contributions to political funds unless their members have expressly opted in.

The House of Commons and the House of Lords now enter a back and forth, the “ping pong” process, with the Bill passing between the two Houses until they both agree on the final version. Given the contentious nature of the Employment Bill, the House of Lords approach is perhaps unsurprising and we will have to wait to see how long the game of ping pong between the Houses takes.

This process will certainly delay implementation of the Bill as it cannot receive Royal Assent and so become an Act of Parliament until it has been passed by both Houses.

In the meantime, it should be noted that the Government has opened consultation on the following areas of the Bill:

• Enhanced dismissal protections for pregnant women and new mothers: this considers the plan to strengthen maternity protection by making it unlawful to dismiss pregnant women, mothers on maternity leave and new mothers for at least six months (consultation closes on 15 January 2026);
• Bereavement leave including pregnancy loss: this covers the expansion of unpaid bereavement leave rights for employees to start on day one and considers when and how leave can be taken, as well as eligibility criteria (consultation closes on 15 January 2026);
• Trade Union access to workplaces: this covers the right for trade unions to access workplaces to meet, support, represent, recruit or organise workers. The consultation will seek views on how such access rights should be managed and how the Central Arbitration Committee (CAC) will determine it (consultation closes on 18 December 2025); and
• Duty to inform workers of trade union rights: this will seek views on the form, content, delivery method and frequency of reissuing the statement (consultation closes on 18 December 2025).

Employers wishing to contribute to the consultations should do so via www.gov.uk before the relevant closure dates highlighted above.