On 16 April 2025, the UK Supreme Court published its judgement in the case of For Women Scotland Ltd v The Scottish Ministers. In this case, the Supreme Court was asked to make a finding on the definition of ‘woman’, ‘sex’, and ‘man’ in the Equality Act 2010.

Mr Hewston was an inspector employed by Ofsted with 12 years of continuous service and, up until the events which led to his dismissal, a clean disciplinary record. Mr Hewston brushed rainwater off a student’s head which made the student feel uncomfortable. Following a complaint from the school, an investigation by Ofsted led to Mr Hewston being summarily dismissed.

From April 2025, several employment law changes take effect, some of which are already in force. Employers should take steps to ensure compliance. 

Starting from 6 April, the UK will introduce new statutory rights to neonatal care leave (NCL) and pay (SNCP), providing crucial support to parents of babies requiring neonatal care.

The Government has recently introduced several amendments to the Employment Rights Bill following a period of consultation.

With the increase in employers’ National Insurance contributions and the Living Wage taking place in April, some of you may be thinking about restructuring your workforce, or even possibly making redundancies.

In January, a Labour MP presented a private members’ bill to Parliament proposing to create a right for employees to have up to ten days paid “safe leave” to deal with issues relating to domestic abuse or violence.

There is no single piece of legislation outlining the legal requirements of the recruitment process. However, employers must comply with several legal requirements from advertising the job to making an offer to the successful candidate.

The highly anticipated budget unveiled by Rachel Reeves on Wednesday introduced several significant measures set to impact employers moving forward. Coupled with the recent release of the Employment Rights Bill, 2024 has marked a year of considerable changes in employment law. Our Head of Employment, Stephen Jennings provides a summary of the key changes.

The Employment Rights Bill, unveiled by Labour in October 2024, contains a number of significant changes to employment law, including the right to claim unfair dismissal from day one of employment. But what does this change mean for employers and how will it be implemented?  

A new legal duty for employers to prevent sexual harassment comes into effect on 26 October 2024 under the Worker Protection (Amendment of Equality Act 2010) Act 2023. This requires employers to take ‘reasonable steps’ to avoid sexual harassment of their employees in the course of employment.

The government’s long-heralded Employment Rights Bill, trailed as the biggest shake-up in employment law for a generation, has now been published. Whilst some of the details of the changes will be set out in secondary legislation informed by ongoing consultation, we've put together a summary of what we know so far.