Employment Rights Bill: Motion to disagree with Lords Amendment 23

What happened: The House of Commons voted on 15 September 2025 to disagree with Lords Amendment 23 to the Employment Rights Bill, effectively rejecting a change the House of Lords had made to the legislation. The motion passed by 329 votes to 163, with the government securing a comfortable majority. This vote was part of the parliamentary process known as ping-pong, in which the two chambers exchange amendments until they reach agreement.

Why it matters: Lords Amendment 23 sought to modify provisions in the Employment Rights Bill that the government wished to maintain in their original form. By voting to disagree with the Lords amendment, MPs preserved the government's preferred wording of the Bill, keeping intact employment rights provisions that the Lords had sought to alter. The Employment Rights Bill is a significant piece of legislation intended to strengthen protections for workers across the UK, and each amendment dispute in ping-pong determines the final shape of those protections.

The politics: The vote divided almost entirely along government-versus-opposition lines. Labour and Labour and Co-operative MPs voted unanimously in favour at 308 combined ayes, joined by the SNP (8), the Greens (3), Plaid Cymru (3) and several independents. Conservatives (85 no), Liberal Democrats (66 no), Reform UK (7 no) and the DUP (2 no) all voted against. There were no notable cross-party rebels within Labour's ranks. This result fits a broader pattern: the same bill saw multiple similar divisions in December 2025, with the government consistently winning by comparable margins, suggesting the Lords' amendments were being systematically rejected as the Bill moved toward its final form.