Employment Rights Bill: Motion to disagree with Lords Amendment 7

Parliament voted on 15 September 2025 to reject Lords Amendment 7 to the Employment Rights Bill, passing the government's motion to disagree by 330 votes to 158. The Lords had inserted a provision fixing the threshold for short-notice cancellation pay at 48 hours, meaning a worker on a zero-hours or low-hours contract would only be entitled to a cancellation payment if their shift was cancelled fewer than 48 hours before it was due to start. The Commons voted to remove that fixed threshold and return the matter to the government for determination through future consultation and secondary legislation. The practical effect is that no specific hour-count for "short notice" will be written into the Employment Rights Act itself. Instead, ministers will consult and then use regulations to define the notice period below which cancellation pay is triggered. Supporters of the government's position argued this preserves flexibility to get the threshold right through evidence and engagement with employers and workers. Opponents argued that fixing 48 hours in primary legislation would give workers and employers immediate, clear certainty about when the entitlement applies, rather than leaving it to be settled at an unspecified future point through secondary legislation, which receives less parliamentary scrutiny than the bill itself. Party voting lines were sharp. All 308 Labour and Labour and Co-operative MPs who voted supported the government, as did the Scottish National Party, Plaid Cymru, the Greens, and the Democratic Unionist Party. All 86 Conservatives, all 66 Liberal Democrats, and all 6 Reform UK MPs who voted opposed the government. The division is part of the bill's ping-pong (the back-and-forth stage between the Commons and Lords as each chamber considers the other's changes), with a cluster of related divisions on the same bill occurring in September and December 2025.