Question to the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade, what steps his Department is taking to a) understand and b) reduce the impacts to workers of employers engaging in fire and rehire practices ahead of the Employment Rights Act restrictions taking effect in 2027.

The government is delivering reforms to tackle unscrupulous fire and rehire practices. Employers will be deemed to have automatically unfairly dismissed an employee if they unilaterally change certain core terms and conditions, including reductions in pay or leave, changes to working hours or pension arrangements, and specified changes to shift patterns.

We recently consulted on the scope of restricted variations for expenses, benefits in kind and shift patterns. The government will publish a response and make regulations in due course.

Analysis of fire and rehire practices has been published as part of the Enactment Impact Assessment for these measures, and an Options Assessment for the recent consultation.