Businesses 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 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 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.