Successful morning of networking & key Employment Law updates

Gooding Accounts’ were joined by business owners from across Wiltshire for a successful morning of networking at Trowbridge Rugby club. Goodings’ new Head of People & HR, Becky, gave an insightful overview of upcoming changes to the Employment Rights Bill and discussed what we’re likely to expect from the Labour Government in the future.

Introducing Gooding People & HR

New for 2025 Gooding People & HR provides a complete HR service for our clients. Whether you’re looking for a one-off health-check of your existing processes or are searching for ongoing support, we can tailor your human resources package to match your specific needs. Led by Becky Banks, an experienced HR consultant with more than 15 years experience, Gooding People & HR can help you ensure compliance to protect your people and your business.

If you’d like to learn more you can drop Becky an email at becky@goodingaccounts.co.uk, book a meeting or request a call back.

Key Employment Law Changes – April 2025 Update

April 2025 Changes

Becky recapped on the changes that will become law in April 2025 including:

• Increases to
  ◦ National Minimum Wage
  ◦ Statutory Payments
  ◦ Employer National Insurance Contributions
  
• Introduction of neonatal leave and pay
  For parents who’s baby needs to spend 7 or more consecutive days in neonatal care within the first 28 days of birth.

Key reforms currently under review

• Changes to day-one rights: including revisions to unfair dismissal, statutory probation periods, paternity, parental, and bereavement leave
• Update on Statutory sick pay (SSP): No Lower Earning Limit, removal of waiting days
• Ban on zero-hours contracts: specifically where regular hours worked
• Fire & Rehire Restrictions
• Stronger protections against sexual harassment
• Gender pay gap action plans
• Flexible working as default: potentially making it more difficult to refuse these requests
• Introduction of a New Fair Work Agency to oversee workers rights

What might we expect in the future?

Kier Starmer’s government has committed to focusing on the rights of working people. Should we have a second term of with Labour in power it’s likely to continue to be a priority.

For now these are the changes we could expect over the coming years:

October 2025

• Fire and Rehire
• Tribunal time limit increasing from three to six months
• Some trade union laws
• Family friendly changes 
• Sexual harassment qualifying for whistleblowing purposes

During 2026

• Day One Unfair Dismissal & clarity on statutory probation period
• Day One SSP and removal of the lower earnings limit
• Employer liability for third party harassment
• Further family friendly changes – removing qualifying period for parental leave; introduction of bereavement leave, being front of the queue for suitable alternative employment when redundant throughout pregnancy and after returning from various family leaves
• collective redundancy changes – when collective consultation is triggered, the 90 to 180 day award for failing to consult properly

During 2027

• Introduction of a Fair Work Agency – a body that will oversee & enforce workers rights including bringing tribunal claims on workers behalf.
• Payments for curtailed / cancelled shifts for zero hour workers

Here at Gooding People & HR we appreciate that there are a lot of changes that might impact the way you manage your business. Becky is always on hand to help guide you through the minefield of HR legislation with tailored HR packages to suit your specific needs. If you’d like an informal chat to see how we can help protect your business and your people simply contact Becky at becky@goodingaccounts.co.uk