Employment Rights Bill: Motion to disagree with Lords Amendment 47

What happened: The House of Commons voted on 15 September 2025 to disagree with Lords Amendment 47 to the Employment Rights Bill, effectively rejecting a modification the House of Lords had made to the government's employment rights proposals. The motion passed by 327 votes to 164, with the government's position prevailing.

Why it matters: This vote is one stage in the parliamentary back-and-forth known as "ping-pong," in which a bill passes between the Commons and Lords until both chambers agree on a final text. By rejecting Lords Amendment 47, the Commons reasserted the government's original framework for workers' rights in that provision, preventing the Lords' changes from becoming law at this stage. The Employment Rights Bill is a substantial piece of legislation affecting how workers are hired, retained, dismissed, and protected across the UK economy, meaning the precise wording of each contested clause has real consequences for employers and employees alike.

The politics: The vote divided almost entirely along government-versus-opposition lines. All 310 Labour and Labour and Co-operative MPs who voted backed the government's position, as did eight SNP members and three Greens. All 82 voting Conservatives, 66 Liberal Democrats, six Reform UK members, three Plaid Cymru members, and two Democratic Unionist Party members voted against. There were no notable cross-party rebellions on the government benches. The vote sits within a broader pattern of repeated Commons-Lords disagreements over the Employment Rights Bill, with several related divisions in December 2025 showing similar margins, suggesting the government has maintained a consistent and comfortable majority throughout the ping-pong process.