Employment Rights Bill: Motion to disagree with Lords Amendment 121

What happened: The House of Commons voted on 15 September 2025 to disagree with Lords Amendment 121 to the Employment Rights Bill, rejecting a change the House of Lords had made to the legislation. The motion passed by 316 votes to 161, allowing the government to maintain its original provisions in the Bill rather than accept the Lords' modification.

Why it matters: The Employment Rights Bill is one of the Labour government's flagship pieces of legislation, designed to strengthen protections for workers across Great Britain. Lords Amendment 121 represented a specific change the upper chamber had inserted into the Bill, which the government judged incompatible with its policy intentions. By voting to disagree with the amendment, the Commons preserved the government's preferred text and sent the Bill back to the Lords, continuing the process known as parliamentary ping-pong, in which the two chambers negotiate the final wording of legislation.

The politics: The vote divided almost entirely along party lines. All 307 Labour and Labour and Co-operative MPs who voted supported the government, joined by three Greens, three independents, and one member from Your Party. All 84 voting Conservatives, all 65 Liberal Democrats, all six voting Reform UK members, both voting DUP members, and the Ulster Unionist member voted against. There were no notable cross-party rebellions on the government side. This division is one of several in a sequence of ping-pong votes on the Employment Rights Bill seen in late 2025, with the government consistently winning Commons majorities to reassert its position against Lords amendments.