Protective award changes in the Employment Rights Bill
A significant change in the amount employment tribunals can award in protective award claims has been welcomed by employment solicitors from Pearson Solicitors, whilst at the same time concerns have been expressed about the watering down of employee rights following pressure from employers.
Protective award 180 days' pay
Alan Lewis, a partner and a specialist employment law solicitor, has championed the rights of thousands of employees and helped them claim protective awards when they have been made redundant.
On 4 March 2025 the UK Government announced it plans to increase the maximum amount of a protective award from 90 days to 180 days.
“This potential doubling of the award is a great benefit to those facing redundancy where 20 or more employees are being made redundant at the same establishment. It will also act as a greater deterrent to those unscrupulous employers who deliberately flout the rules on collective redundancies” said Alan Lewis
Collective redundancy changes
However, two days later the UK Government also announced that it intends to shelve its previous separate plan to strengthen workers’ rights in collective redundancy situations following pressure from employers. It had been proposed that legislation would be passed to make it easier for employees involved in a multi-site redundancy exercise to pursue claims for a protective award.
There have been many occasions where a business may have made hundreds of employees redundant at the same time, but the majority of employees were unable to pursue claims for protective awards because there were less than 20 employees made redundant at the site or premises where they worked.
The UK Government had initially planned to remove this obstacle for employees. However, employers were concerned that they could inadvertently find themselves in breach of this proposed legislation if they were making small numbers of redundancies throughout different site locations in their business within a 90 day period.
Alan Lewis commented:
“It seems to me that the government has thrown the baby out with the bathwater, as there are many cases where an employer will be planning to make hundreds of employees redundant at the same time throughout multiple sites and will be fully aware of the numbers from day one. This is a far greater concern to thousands of employees than the relatively small risk of an employer somehow tripping over the 20 or more limit without realising it, particularly when larger employers will have HR and data systems which should pick up on this risk.”
“It is suggested that the government may introduce some further legislation that would allow employees to aggregate the total number of redundancies between different stores/sites in certain circumstances, but no further detail has been provided about this at this stage.”
How can we help?
Pearson Solicitors and Financial Advisers specialise in helping redundant employees make a claim. For legal advice on making a protective award claim contact our employment law solicitors on 0161 785 3500 or email enquiries@pearsonlegal.co.uk
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