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27 Oct 2025
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27 Oct 2025
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The Tories have urged peers to back a last-ditch bid to water down the Government’s workers’ rights legislation.
The Employment Rights Bill will offer workers protection from unfair dismissal from day one in a job, rather than the current two years.
With the Bill in its final parliamentary stages, the Conservatives urged peers to back a six-month threshold, something business groups and the Resolution Foundation think tank have supported as a compromise.
The Conservatives have opposed the legislation and have said they will repeal it if returned to office.
Ahead of Tuesday’s Lords votes, shadow business secretary Andrew Griffith said: “At a time of rising unemployment and anaemic growth, Britain needs strength, not weakness.
“Keir Starmer simply doesn’t have the backbone to stand up to his trade union paymasters or take the tough decisions our country needs.”
The Employment Rights Bill will return to parliament this week.
The bill will improve workers’ lives and bring our employment regulation into line with other advanced economies.
But on unfair dismissal, the Government risks lurching from one extreme to the other ⤵️… pic.twitter.com/FNW5Cr7YMm
— Resolution Foundation (@resfoundation) October 26, 2025
The Resolution Foundation has close links to Labour and its former chief Torsten Bell is now a Treasury minister.
His successor at the Resolution Foundation, Ruth Curtice, said: “The Employment Rights Bill will rightly end the UK’s unwelcome status as an international outlier when it comes to protecting workers against bad behaviour.
“The Bill is unlikely to help or hinder growth, but it will deliver much-needed support to often low-paid staff on insecure contracts.
“But in one aspect the UK risks lurching from one extreme to another – by ending the qualifying period for unfair dismissal protection.
“Introducing a new legal probation period alongside this is a messy compromise that risks making it harder for firms to hire, confusing workers, and serving to only benefit employment lawyers.
“A far more straightforward solution is to reduce the qualifying period from two years to three or six months, as is common across almost all other advanced economies.”
MPs have already rejected a previous attempt by peers to water down day-one rights for workers.
Labour’s election manifesto committed to providing protection from unfair dismissal as one of the “basic rights from day one”.
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