The stalemate continues: the question of whether qualifying service for unfair dismissal rights should be removed entirely or reduced to six months by the Employment Rights Bill was once again before the House of Commons last week,m (5th November 2025) and once again the Government has dug in its heels.
Removing qualifying service for unfair dismissal rights entirely (subject to a probation period) was a key commitment within the Government’s Plan to Make Work Pay, and in now rejecting the House of Lords’ amendment to the Employment Rights Bill to replace it with a six-month qualifying period, it is clear the Government is unwilling to back down on this.
However, that doesn’t change the fact that this reform is one of the biggest changes to employee rights in decades, so while this issue is getting the intense scrutiny it merits, employers need clarity sooner rather than later.
Whichever way it goes, employers will need to prepare themselves to comply with the new law. The change to qualifying service for unfair dismissal is not set to come into force until 2027. This may seem a way off now, but it will soon be upon us, and with the challenges businesses are already facing — especially when it comes to recruitment and new hires — the more time there is to prepare, the better. As the Bill returns to the House of Lords, we can only wait and see what happens next.
