Employment law - Looking Ahead 

The Presidents of the Employment Tribunals of England & Wales and Scotland have issued a new Practice Direction in relation to the submission of Tribunal responses. The Practice Direction for England & Wales can be found here and the one for Scotland can be found here. These will take effect from 21 May 2025.

Once the Practice Directions come into force, a Tribunal response may only be presented using one of the four following methods:

• online using the online submission service provided by HM Courts & Tribunals Service (which appears to mean both the MyHMCTS portal and the older online submission service);
• by post to the Employment Tribunal Central Office for England & Wales or Scotland (as appropriate);
• by hand to any of the Employment Tribunal offices listed in the relevant Practice Direction; or
• exceptionally by email to a new dedicated email address: etsubmission-engwal@justice.gov.uk (England & Wales) or etsubmission-scot@justice.gov.uk (Scotland).

Submitting a response by email will only be permitted where there has been a fault with the online submission service. The email must attach a screenshot of the error message generated by the online submission service to show that there was a system fault at the relevant time.

Any responses not presented to the Tribunal in accordance with the relevant Practice Direction will be rejected. In-house legal teams should therefore adapt any existing working practices as appropriate and as soon as possible before 21 May 2025.

It is proposed that this Bill will introduce mandatory ethnicity and disability pay reporting for large employers with 250 or more employees. Although the Bill has not yet been published, the Government has recently opened a consultation on its proposals, which closes on 10 June 2025. 

It is proposed that the same six pay gap measures currently used for gender pay gap reporting would apply, but that employees would self-report their ethnicity and any disabilities (with the option to opt-out). In addition, it would be mandatory for employers to report on the overall breakdown of their workforce by ethnicity and disability, and on the percentage of employees not disclosing their personal data. The Government is also consulting on whether employers should prepare action plans identifying the causes of any pay gaps and actions they can take to close those gaps.

Larger employers should consider responding to the consultation before the deadline, as the Government has said that responses will help it to shape the new draft legislation. 

The Employment Rights Bill is gradually making its way through Parliament. It is widely anticipated that it will be passed into law in the summer, but most of the reforms will need further regulations to take effect. 

Having said that, employers should have on their radar that certain reforms relating to trade unions will take effect only two months after the Employment Rights Bill is passed, including the following: 

• the ‘support threshold’ requirement applicable to ballots of workers in ‘important public services’ will be removed;

• the information required in ballot notices will change and the information required on ballot papers will be simplified;

• the notice of industrial action that a union must give an employer will be reduced from 14 to 10 days;

• in a notice of industrial action, there will no longer be a requirement for a trade union to disclose the number of employees in each category expected to take part; 

• the requirements for union supervision of picketing will be removed; and

• the restrictions on public sector employers in relation to providing a check-off service will be removed.

Please contact a member of the TLT Employment Team for further information. 

The current US administration is pushing back on ED&I programmes in the workplace and media reports have been speculating on whether UK employers will start to follow suit.

It is likely that organisations in the UK with strong links to the US may start to evaluate their existing ED&I programmes in light of the US Government's new approach. Whether employers without such links do the same remains to be seen, although a recent poll by the Institute of Directors found that 71% of business leaders do not plan to alter their approach.

As mentioned by one of our partners in The Times recently, discrimination laws in the UK remain some of the strongest in the world and progressive attitudes are firmly embedded into the practices of most UK employers. As such, we do not expect to see a wholesale change in attitude towards diversity and inclusion in the UK, with the law continuing to protect employees and provide avenues for addressing discriminatory practices.

Employers reviewing their ED&I initiatives in the UK should ensure that their actions do not fall foul of the Equality Act 2010 and they do not increase the risk of claims. They should also consider whether changes might leave them exposed in view of the forthcoming duty under the Employment Rights Bill to take “all reasonable steps” to prevent unlawful harassment.