Government & Policy
The Employment Rights Act 2025, passed as the legislative centrepiece of Labour's Make Work Pay agenda, reached its first implementation phase on 6 April. The changes span sick pay, family leave, redundancy, whistleblowing, and a new enforcement body. Further reforms follow through 2027, but what is already in force represents a material shift in the baseline obligations every UK employer now carries.
Sick pay from day one
The most immediately felt change is the abolition of the three-day waiting period for statutory sick pay. SSP is now payable from the first day of absence. The lower earnings limit, which previously disqualified workers earning below £125 per week from eligibility, has also been scrapped. All employees, irrespective of their earnings, are now eligible for SSP. The rate is the lower of £123.25 per week or 80 per cent of average weekly earnings. For employers in hospitality, retail, and social care, where short-term absence is common, the cost implications land immediately.
Family leave is now a day-one right
Paternity leave and unpaid parental leave have both become day-one rights, removing the previous service requirements of 26 weeks for paternity leave and one year for unpaid parental leave. An employee who joins a business today and becomes a parent next month is entitled to both. The right to statutory pay has not changed, but the entitlement to take the leave is now immediate.
A new right also arrived alongside these changes. Bereaved partners, meaning the surviving partner of someone who dies in connection with childbirth, are now entitled to take up to 52 weeks of unpaid leave within the first year of the child's life. This too carries no qualifying period.
The cost of a bad redundancy process has doubled
The maximum protective award for failure to comply with collective redundancy consultation obligations has increased from 90 days' pay to 180 days' pay per affected employee. ollective redundancy rules apply when an employer proposes to dismiss 20 or more people within 90 days. The consultation requirements are unchanged, but the financial exposure for getting the process wrong is now twice what it was last month.
Whistleblowing and holiday records
Disclosures relating to sexual harassment are now explicitly a protected disclosure under whistleblowing legislation, meaning detrimental treatment or dismissal connected to such a disclosure gives rise to claims under the Employment Rights Act 1996. The previous ambiguity on this point is removed.
Employers also face a new administrative obligation: adequate records of annual leave and holiday pay must now be kept for six years, with failure to comply a criminal offence punishable by a fine.
A new enforcement body
From 7 April, the Fair Work Agency has been formally established as a single enforcement body, consolidating powers previously spread across multiple agencies covering national minimum wage, employment agency standards, and modern slavery obligations. It can inspect workplaces, demand documents, and pursue civil penalties. Until now, most enforcement depended on individual workers taking claims to tribunal. The FWA adds a state-led enforcement mechanism on top of that, at a moment when tribunal claim volumes have already risen 54 per cent over the past year.
Wages
From 1 April, the National Living Wage for workers aged 21 and over rose from £12.21 to £12.71 per hour. The rate for 18 to 20-year-olds increased from £10.00 to £10.85, and the rate for 16 to 17-year-olds and apprentices rose from £7.55 to £8.00 per hour.
Changes cited came into force on 6 April 2026 under the Employment Rights Act 2025. Wage rates took effect from 1 April 2026.
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