Employment Rights Bill: Motion to disagree with Lords Amendment 8

On 15 September 2025, the House of Commons voted by 316 to 172 to reject Lords Amendment 8 to the Employment Rights Bill. The amendment, passed in the House of Lords, would have fixed the threshold for short-notice shift cancellation pay at 48 hours, meaning workers would only be entitled to a cancellation payment if their shift was cancelled less than 48 hours before it was due to start. The Commons voted to disagree with this Lords amendment, preserving the government's preferred approach of setting that threshold through regulations made after a consultation. The vote matters because it determines how quickly and how firmly zero-hours and low-hours workers gain protection when shifts are cancelled at short notice. The Lords amendment would have put a concrete 48-hour trigger into the primary legislation immediately, giving workers and employers a fixed and enforceable standard. By rejecting it, the Commons kept the threshold open to be defined later by secondary legislation. Supporters of the government's position argued that regulations allow for flexibility and can be shaped by consultation with businesses and workers. Critics, including those who backed the Lords amendment, argued that leaving the threshold undefined delays certainty for workers who currently have no guaranteed protection at all. Labour MPs voted unanimously for the government's position, with 274 Labour and 34 Labour and Co-operative members voting in favour, and none against. All 83 Conservative MPs who voted, all 66 Liberal Democrats who voted, all 8 SNP members who voted, all 6 Reform UK members, and all 3 Plaid Cymru members who voted opposed the government and supported the Lords amendment. The vote followed a broader pattern of ping-pong between the two chambers on the Employment Rights Bill, with the Commons rejecting several Lords amendments on the same day in favour of either the original Bill text or government-drafted alternatives.