Businesses in plea to peers over Employment Rights Bill

BUSINESS groups have called on peers to back down and pass the UK Government's workers’ rights legislation despite concerns with the package.

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The Employment Rights Bill is caught up in a battle between the Commons and Lords, where the UK Government has suffered a series of defeats, but ministers still hope to get it through before Parliament shuts down for Christmas on Thursday.

Ministers have ditched a day-one right to protections against unfair dismissal and replaced it with a six-month qualifying period in an attempt to get the legislation through.

But alongside this, the UK Government introduced an 11th-hour measure to scrap the compensation caps for unfair dismissal, which are currently the lower of 52 weeks’ pay or £118,223 - something peers rejected in the most recent round of parliamentary “ping pong” between the Commons and Lords.