Employment Rights Bill: Motion to disagree with Lords Amendment 62

What happened: The House of Commons voted on 15 September 2025 to disagree with Lords Amendment 62 to the Employment Rights Bill, passing the motion by 330 votes to 161. This meant the Commons rejected a change the House of Lords had made to the Bill and reasserted the government's original position on that element of the legislation.

Why it matters: The Employment Rights Bill is one of the Labour government's flagship pieces of legislation, designed to significantly expand protections and entitlements for workers across Great Britain. Lords Amendment 62 represented one of several modifications the upper chamber had made to the Bill during its passage through Parliament. By voting to disagree with it, the Commons blocked that particular Lords change and kept the government's preferred approach in place. The vote is part of the broader process known as "ping-pong," where the two chambers negotiate the final text of contested legislation, and the outcome here reinforces the government's employment rights framework in this specific area.

The politics: The vote divided along strongly partisan lines. All 309 Labour and Labour and Co-operative MPs who voted did so in favour of disagreeing with the Lords amendment, and they were joined by the SNP, Plaid Cymru, the Greens, and most independents voting that day. Against the government's position were the Conservatives (83 votes), the Liberal Democrats (65 votes), Reform UK (6 votes), and the Democratic Unionist Party (2 votes). The clean division, with no Labour rebels, reflects tight government whipping on a Bill central to its political programme.