The government branded this a "Day 1" right to protection from unfair dismissal. The law it wrote makes every worker wait six months first.
Estimated reading time: 6 minutes
In short. The Department for Business and Trade's implementation roadmap for the Employment Rights Act 2025 promises a "'Day 1' right to protection from unfair dismissal to ensure all workers are treated fairly from the start of employment." The Act's own text does something narrower: section 25 cuts the two year qualifying period to six months, not to zero. Thirteen months after Royal Assent, even that six month version has not been switched on: the qualifying period a worker faces today is still two years, exactly as it was before Parliament acted. Two documented mistakes: four stars.
The Employment Rights Act 2025 received Royal Assent on 11 September 2025, and the government did not wait for that date to start describing what it would do [1]. Two months earlier, the Department for Business and Trade published an Implementation Roadmap setting out when each measure would take effect, and led with a headline figure: "15 million, or half of all, workers set to start benefitting" [2]. Among the roadmap's six "landmark rights" sits one with a specific, quotable name: a "'Day 1' right to protection from unfair dismissal to ensure all workers are treated fairly from the start of employment" [2]. That phrase has done a lot of work in press coverage of the Act. It is worth reading against what section 25 actually says.
The claims, tested
| The government's claim | What the Act and its record actually say | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| A "'Day 1' right to protection from unfair dismissal to ensure all workers are treated fairly from the start of employment" [2] | Section 25(2)(a) amends section 108(1) of the Employment Rights Act 1996 so that "for 'two years' substitute 'six months'" [3]. No provision anywhere in the Act removes the qualifying period. The right described is six months old, not day one | Mislabelled: a shorter wait, not the absence of one |
| The roadmap places this measure in its 2027 delivery window, alongside ending the "exploitative use of zero hours contracts" [2] | Section 108(1) of the Employment Rights Act 1996, as it can be read on legislation.gov.uk today, still says "two years": section 25 has no commencement order, and the dependent Schedule 3 amendments are marked "Prospective" [4] [3] | On the government's own published timetable so far, but nothing live yet for any worker |
| The same Act uses the same "Day 1" language elsewhere: sections 15 and 16 are titled "Parental leave: removal of qualifying period of employment" and "Paternity leave: removal of qualifying period of employment" [5] [6] | Both sections are wholly in force since 6 April 2026, with the qualifying period genuinely removed, not shortened [5] [6] | CLEARED: an accurate day one right, delivered on schedule |
The mistakes, counted
"Day 1" describes a right that starts on day 182 (1). Section 25 of the Act amends Part 10 of the Employment Rights Act 1996, the part that governs unfair dismissal, in two ways: it substitutes "six months" for "two years" in the qualifying period at section 108(1), and it omits section 124, which currently caps the compensatory award an employment tribunal can make [3]. Neither change touches the qualifying period itself out of existence. A worker dismissed in month five, under the Act as drafted, has exactly the protection they have now: none, save for the small set of automatically unfair reasons that already carry no qualifying period, such as dismissal for pregnancy or for whistleblowing [3] [4]. The department's own roadmap calls this measure a right "from the start of employment" in the same document that, two paragraphs later, schedules it for 2027 rather than for the day the Bill passed [2]. A right with a six month qualifying period is a real and significant change from two years. It is not, on the ordinary meaning of the words, a day one right, and the Act that creates it does not pretend otherwise once you leave the press release for the statute.
Thirteen months after Royal Assent, none of it is law yet (2). Section 159(3) sets the default rule for most of this Act: "the other provisions of this Act come into force in accordance with regulations made by the Secretary of State" [7]. Four commencement orders have followed Royal Assent so far, bringing sections into force on 6 January, 6 April and 1 July 2026 [8] [9] [10]. None of them commences section 25(1) to (4), the subsections that actually change the qualifying period and remove the compensation cap. The only fragment of section 25 that has moved is subsection (5), a pointer to Schedule 3's minor and consequential amendments, "in force at 1.7.2026 for specified purposes" [10] [3]. Schedule 3 itself, when read on legislation.gov.uk, carries a "Prospective" marker across the whole of its text, meaning none of its amendments, including a parallel six month change to the separate right to written reasons for dismissal, has actually applied [3]. The practical result: read section 108(1) of the Employment Rights Act 1996 today, and it still says "two years," identically to how it read before this Act existed [4]. The government's own guaranteed hours reform, the Act's other headline plank for the same 2027 delivery window, shows the identical pattern: section 1 has been commenced "for specified purposes" only, with no date yet fixed for the substantive right [11]. Two flagship measures, one shared commencement mechanism, neither one operative for a single worker.
Credit where due
Not every "Day 1" claim in this Act is loose language. Sections 15 and 16 do exactly what their titles say: they remove the qualifying period for parental leave and paternity leave outright, not shorten it, and both have been wholly in force since 6 April 2026, on schedule and without qualification [5] [6]. That matters for how this teardown should be read: the fault here is not that the department invented a category of "Day 1" rights that does not exist in the Act, it is that it applied the label to one measure that does not meet it while genuinely delivering it elsewhere. Nor is the 2027 date itself a broken promise. The roadmap was published two months before Royal Assent and put unfair dismissal reform in its final delivery window from the start; nothing found here shows the government sliding a date it once promised sooner [2]. The criticism is narrower and, this site thinks, sharper for it: call the six month right what it is.
Verdict
Four stars, from two documented mistakes. A worker reading the government's own description of this Act could reasonably conclude that unfair dismissal protection now starts on their first day. It does not, and will not even once section 25 is switched on: the Act itself sets the new floor at six months. Right now, thirteen months after Parliament passed it, the floor has not moved at all. Two years remains the law, because the section that would change it has never been commenced. A press release calling a six month wait "Day 1" is not a lie about the destination. It is a wrong description of the distance still to travel, and of how far this Act has actually gone.
Sources
- Employment Rights Act 2025, legislation.gov.uk
- GOV.UK / Department for Business and Trade, "Roadmap unveiled to boost rights for half of all UK workers and provide certainty to employers", 1 July 2025. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/roadmap-unveiled-to-boost-rights-for-half-of-all-uk-workers-and-provide-certainty-to-employers
- Employment Rights Act 2025, section 25, legislation.gov.uk
- Employment Rights Act 1996, section 108, legislation.gov.uk
- Employment Rights Act 2025, section 15, legislation.gov.uk
- Employment Rights Act 2025, section 16, legislation.gov.uk
- Employment Rights Act 2025, section 159, legislation.gov.uk
- The Employment Rights Act 2025 (Commencement No. 1 and Transitional and Saving Provisions) Regulations 2026, legislation.gov.uk
- The Employment Rights Act 2025 (Commencement No. 3 and Transitional Provisions) Regulations 2026, legislation.gov.uk
- The Employment Rights Act 2025 (Commencement No. 4 and Transitional and Saving Provisions) Regulations 2026, legislation.gov.uk
- Employment Rights Act 2025, section 1, legislation.gov.uk