Employment in the news | October 2025

The Employment Rights Bill has its next (and possibly final) stage in the House of Lords on 28 October. If the Lords accept the Bill, it will become law when it receives Royal Assent. The Lords won’t usually block a government’s manifesto commitments, so it looks likely to pass.

Royal Assent isn’t the end of the story. Many changes won’t take effect for twelve months or more and the full impact of the legislation won’t be clear until the government publishes further legislation. The government promised it would consult on the new regulations and produced the first consultation exercises in late October, giving a clearer idea of how some areas may work in practice.

The initial consultations cover bereavement leave, enhanced protection against dismissals for pregnant employees and new mothers, the new trade union right to access workplaces and the employer duty to inform workers about their right to join a union. You can read about the consultations in more detail here.

Next steps

• Respond to the trade union related consultations by 18 December and to consultations on bereavement leave and enhanced protection against dismissal by 15 January 2026.
• Monitor for further consultations, especially on making unfair dismissal a day one right.
• The Hogan Lovells employment team will discuss how to prepare for the Bill in a webinar in November. We’ll be sending invitations out soon.

One key feature of a fair disciplinary process is for an employee who’s accused of misconduct to have sufficient information about the allegations to be able to defend themselves. Another is for disciplinary managers to approach hearings with an open mind and to hear the evidence before reaching a decision. In Alom v The Financial Conduct Authority, the EAT considered whether not giving an employee a transcript of interviews conducted during a disciplinary investigation, or using a prepared script to conduct the hearing, made a dismissal unfair.

Mr Alom was accused of sending a harassing and threatening anonymous email to a colleague. He received a copy of the email before his disciplinary hearing, but not the transcript of interviews held with the colleague during the investigation. At the hearing, the disciplinary manager relied on a document prepared by the HR department which was described as a “script”. This described the email as unpleasant and said Mr Alom’s response when asked about it was evasive.

Mr Alom appealed to the EAT when his unfair dismissal claim failed. He said not giving him the transcripts meant he didn’t have sufficient information about the charges against him, and that the script showed that the disciplinary manager had prejudged the issue.

Neither argument succeeded. The ACAS Code of Practice requires the accused to have sufficient information to allow them to respond, which depends on the facts of the case. Mr Alom knew that he was accused of committing serious misconduct by sending an anonymous email with threatening content and why the employer believed he was the author.

Although parts of the script suggested that the decision maker had certain views, it didn’t follow that he had prejudged the decision or that the HR team had taken the decision. The tribunal accepted the disciplinary manager’s evidence that he decided to dismiss after hearing and considering all the evidence. The script didn’t suggest a particular outcome to the process and the tribunal could reach the conclusion it did.

Next steps

• Check that employees receive copies of all relevant information during a disciplinary process unless there is a good reason not to, such as a need to safeguard witnesses.
• This should help minimise arguments about procedural unfairness.
• Scripts can set an agenda for a disciplinary hearing and provide relevant points for a disciplinary manager to raise and consider. However, avoid language that could indicate that issues have been pre-determined.