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R (Greyhound Board of Great Britain Ltd) v Welsh Ministers [2026] EWHC 670 (Admin) What are the practical implications of this case? The ruling reinforces the constitutional divide between the courts and the legislature. It explains that the scheme and framework of the Government of Wales Act 2006 (GWA 2006) embody that separation of powers, and that any judicial attempt to recognise and enforce a common law obligation on Welsh Ministers to consult prior to introducing legislation in the Senedd would trespass upon that boundary. This is not a departure from established principle; case law has already upheld comparable rules for lawmakers in Scotland and at Westminster. However, this is the first express confirmation of the position for Welsh lawmakers, and the first time this dimension of the GWA 2006 has been analysed in such depth. The court examined earlier
The solution arrived through the United Nations Compensation Commission (UNCC), a quasi‑judicial body handling mass claims, created under UN Security Council Resolution 687. By addressing environmental harm—most notably via its ‘F4’ claim class—the UNCC set a seminal benchmark shaping how international law and contemporary arbitral panels allocate financial responsibility for wartime ecological devastation. With present-day wars in areas such as Eastern Europe and the Middle East bringing dam breaches, strikes on chemical facilities, and the burning of farmland, the UNCC’s legacy endures as an essential reference point for states, global investors, and companies engaged in post‑conflict arbitration. The F4 claims: Quantifying the unquantifiable Prior to the 1990s, mechanisms in international law for war reparations overwhelmingly favoured property loss, foregone earnings, and bodily injury. The natural world was commonly treated as a mute, non-compensable victim of armed hostilities...
Understanding the farming business as a business Many farms still use long-standing structures that arose by habit, not strategy. Sole traders, informal partnerships and outdated partnership deeds are common. While once effective, such setups can cause major issues around succession, tax planning and involving the next generation. A corporate team can take a fresh, business-led view of the farm, asking: Who owns the land and other critical assets? Who manages daily operations? Who carries the risk and who enjoys the return? What is the enduring plan for succession? From this review, the team can confirm whether the current setup is fit for purpose or if an alternative — for example an updated partnership agreement, a company, a limited liability partnership, or a blended model — would better meet the family’s aims. Tax efficiency through joined-up advice Tax sits at the centre of most
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New requirement for care worker sponsors to recruit from UK ‘pool’ first A new eligibility rule now applies to applicants for care workers and home carers ( SOC 2020 code 6135) and senior care workers ( SOC 2020 code 6136) where they will be: working exclusively in England, and either: seeking entry clearance, or switching in-country into this route—unless they have already spent at least three months working for the sponsor in one of these SOC 2020 roles under their current immigration route In these circumstances, the sponsor must confirm it has attempted, but failed, to recruit from the UK-based ‘pool’ of Skilled Workers who: are currently in the UK, were most recently sponsored in one of the two SOC 2020...
The new labour regulator The new labour regulator, formed by merging three separate existing enforcement bodies, will be empowered to provide guidance and support to staff taking legal action against their employers and to issue penalties to repay underpaid workers more quickly overall than pursuing an employment tribunal case themselves, Justin Madders told MPs. The agency will also be able to reclaim enforcement expenses from employers it successfully prosecutes, though this measure will be consulted on. ' We believe it is a key principle that, where wrongdoing occurs, the wrongdoer contributes towards the taxpayer’s costs of upholding the law,' Labour MP Madders said in the House of Commons......
In this issue: Horizon scanning Directors Employment contract Pay Tax Prohibited conduct protection at work Diversity and gender pay gap Whistleblowing Union status and obligations Financial services and banking: employment issues Employment tribunals Immigration IRLR Highlights— April 2025 New and updated content Dates for your diary Trackers New Q& As Employment resources on Lexis+® Lex Talk®Employment: a Lexis®Nexis community Daily and weekly news alerts Horizon scanning Calls from businesses urging the UK government to moderate its employment law agenda have been largely set aside, with the Employment Rights Bill ( ERB) further enhancing workers’ entitlements on 4 March 2025. See Law360: Employment Rights Bill is pro‑worker but not...
European Commission v Hungary ( C-155/23), European Commission v Republic of Estonia ( C-154/23), European Commission v Grand Duchy of Luxembourg ( C-150/23), European Commission v Czech Republic ( C-152/23), and European Commission v Federal Republic of Germany ( C-149/23), all in the Court of Justice of the EU ( CJEU). Through rulings dated 6 March 2025, the CJEU found that Germany, Luxembourg, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Estonia had unlawfully postponed implementing measures meeting Directive ( EU) 2019/1937, the Whistleblowing Directive. Germany received the heaviest sanction—€34m—while the remaining states were ordered to pay sums ranging from €375,000 to €2.3m. As Estonia had still not transposed the Directive by the time of the decision, it will incur a continuing charge of €1,500 per day until it brings its laws into line......
Although ministers insist the bill is “firmly pro-business and pro-worker”, the latest changes have yielded a final version that further ramps up the financial pressures on employers under the Labour government. Sanctions for employers who breach collective redundancy procedures will be doubled, and the Central Arbitration Committee will gain the power to levy fines on businesses that obstruct union access to the workplace. Statutory sick pay will apply to every single worker from the first day of illness, yet there is no indication of a revival of the rebate scheme the government once ran for small and medium-sized businesses and firms. A reduced payment is also presently available to individuals earning below the 2024 threshold of £116.75 per week. MPs are also expected to insert a right to a fortnight of bereavement leave for parents following a miscarriage when the ERB reaches its third...
In this issue: Horizon scanning Status and worker categories Pay Tax Protected characteristics Protection from prohibited conduct at work Prohibited conduct (discrimination etc) Equality of terms (equal pay) Trade unions and industrial action ESG and sustainability: employment issues Redundancy Dates for your diary Trackers New Q& As Employment resources on Lexis+® Lex Talk®Employment: a Lexis®Nexis community Daily and weekly news alerts Horizon scanning Proposed amendments to the Employment Rights Bill On 4 March 2025, the House of Commons ( Ho C) issued an Amendment Paper setting out every non-government amendment put forward to the Employment Rights Bill ( ERB) in advance of the report stage, scheduled to begin on 11 March......
The Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia ( Cultural Bureau) v Costantine [2025] UKSC 9 Background to the Appeal Ms Costantine, a dual Lebanese– British national, worked for the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia from 18 January 2010 to 17 January 2018. During that time, the embassy’s remit included arranging support for, and safeguarding the interests of, Saudi students studying in the United Kingdom. She started as a Post Room Clerk in the Administrative Affairs Department. In practical terms, this was a data-entry position: she handled university invoices and matched them to the appropriate student by checking the name, number and university. She did not open mail, nor did she analyse any correspondence. Although she could, in principle, have accessed a wide range of confidential material through an electronic record system, she was unaware that such access was available and never in fact used it. From 2012 to 2015, she...
Nockolds Solicitors Ltd reports that references to the menopause in unfair and constructive dismissal actions, alongside discrimination claims, have surged to more than three times previous levels, jumping from 64 in 2022 to 204 over the last year. In a statement, Joanna Sutton, a principal associate at Nockolds, noted that while employer understanding of mental health and other disabilities has improved, many workplace rules still have yet to catch up and account for the menopause as a disability. Sutton also remarked that employers are increasingly insisting staff come back to the office and increase output, placing pressure on employees......
Employment Rights Bill, As Amended ( Amendment Paper), 5 March 2025 Employment Rights Bill— Stages What are the implications? The Amendment Paper sets out the amendments lodged by 5 March 2025 for consideration at the report stage. There are no immediate consequences because it is still uncertain which of these proposals—if any—will be approved and trigger revisions to the ERB, although government-backed amendments remain more likely to pass. The consolidated schedule within the Amendment Paper also contains previously tabled, non-government amendments that we covered in our earlier News Analysis: Employment Rights Bill—non-government proposed amendments. The government’s suggested changes, many stemming from conclusions reached in its consultation responses, provide practitioners with an early indication of adjustments that are expected to filter into this key item of employment legislation. As a result, close monitoring of the debate remains advisable for all employment law...
Business and Trade Committee— Make Work Pay: Employment Rights Bill ( Third Report of Session 2024–24, HC 370) The government should “speed up, not stall” its programme to clarify employment status, mandate modern slavery statements, and tackle pay shortfalls linked to “umbrella” companies, the Business and Trade Committee has urged. The report also calls for sanctions where organisations fail to publish their modern slavery statements, and to “name and shame” employers that do not comply with a proposed duty to set out a plan to narrow their gender pay gap. Measures to curb zero-hours contracts must be very precisely set out in regulations “as soon as possible” to give employers legal certainty and to prevent avoidance by engaging agency labour or nominally self-employed contractors instead, the committee said. It added that the Bill lacks provisions to ensure the proposed Fair Work Agency is...
Government response— Making Work Pay: Strengthening Statutory Sick Pay What are the implications? The change to the method by which SSP is calculated will: benefit a number of lower-paid workers in particular result in an additional cost to employers, albeit relatively small in most instances The government considers setting SSP at 80% to be the right balance, shielding those on lower incomes from financial hardship and better enabling people to take the time off they need to recover, when they are unwell, which can also help stop the spread of infections and cut the overall rate of sickness absence. These changes will apply across England, Wales and Scotland......
Employment Rights Bill, As Amended ( Amendment Paper) Employment Rights Bill— Stages What are the implications? The Amendment Paper sets out, as at 4 March 2025, the amendments that have been tabled for debate at the report stage. For now, there are no immediate implications, because it is not yet known which of these proposals, if any, will be accepted and translated into revisions to the ERB. Even so, the suggested changes offer those following the bill’s passage a helpful early steer—an advance notice—of adjustments that could still find their way into this significant item of employment legislation in due course, should they progress......
Government response to the consultation on the application of zero hours contracts measures to agency workers What are the implications? The entitlement for a ‘qualifying worker’—that is, a person engaged on one or more zero hours contracts, or on a zero hours arrangement for ‘low hours’—to be offered guaranteed hours matching the hours actually worked within a set reference period will be extended to agency workers. Further, the new protections covering reasonable notice of shifts, together with proportionate payment where shifts are cancelled, shortened, or rescheduled at short notice, will likewise apply to agency workers......
Government response to ‘ Making Work Pay: creating a modern framework for industrial relations’ Annexes for the government response to the consultation on creating a modern framework for industrial relations What are the implications? The proposed revisions to the ERB would deliver significant and practical changes to the current way trade unions operate across the board. They are designed to make union activity simpler and more workable, for example by: simplifying the information requirements for industrial action ballots permitting e-balloting, and lengthening the mandate period for industrial action Employers would benefit from a 10–day notice period, rather than the present 7–day notice period, for industrial action. The government will table the ERB amendments relating to trade unions and industrial action, as set out in detail at paragraph 175 on page 51 of the consultation response, to be considered at the report stage due to begin on 11...
Government response to consultation: Tackling non-compliance in the umbrella company market What could this signify?...
Government response to the consultation on strengthening remedies against abuse of rules on collective redundancy and fire and rehire What are the implications? The government explains in its consultation reply that it aims to strike a balanced course: ensuring employers cannot consciously sidestep their obligations, and removing any chance that doing so could ever be financially worthwhile. It considers that raising the maximum length of the protective award to 180 days is the most proportionate measure. Employment tribunals will still have discretion to adjust the protected period’s duration, up to a limit of 180 days, where they deem it just and equitable in all the circumstances, reflecting the seriousness of the employer’s conduct and any mitigating elements. The government believes this will deliver a stronger deterrent against cynical, deliberate infringements of the collective redundancy rules, while also allowing tribunals to continue to assess the context of the...
Ministry of Defence v Rubery [2024] EAT 165 What are the practical implications of this case? The EAT holds here that statutory limits on employment tribunals, which stop them from hearing certain discrimination claims by current members of the armed forces, do not infringe Convention rights. This ruling matters for practitioners advising serving personnel on avenues of redress for alleged discrimination by the services. Put plainly, those still in service cannot pursue a tribunal claim asserting that the statutory service complaints scheme itself is discriminatory. More broadly, the EAT skirts the question of the correct intensity of review for the human rights ground advanced, namely whether a rigorous proportionality analysis is required or a looser enquiry framed by whether the curb on tribunal access is manifestly without reasonable foundation. The EAT decides that, whichever standard is applied, the impugned restrictions are...
Lawyers warned firms to consider less discriminatory alternatives in light of a successful claim by Martin Scott that Walker Morris' refusal to allow him to stay on as a senior partner after he turned 63 was unlawful Raymond Silverstein, head of employment at Browne Jacobson LLP, said the judgment published on 20 February 2025 sends a clear message to law firms: if you intend to impose and enforce a retirement age of 60, you need more than a broad assertion of ‘succession planning’ — you must be ready with evidence and data. Commentators observed that compulsory retirement remains prevalent among City practices, notwithstanding legal reforms that have limited when it can lawfully be used. Unpublished survey findings from the Association of Professional Partnerships show the practice began to wane in 2011, the year the UK prohibited compulsory retirement, with around two-thirds of...
In this issue: Recruitment Benefits Protected characteristics Diversity and the gender pay gap Maternity, parents and carers Unfair dismissal Financial services and banking: employment issues Dates for your diary Trackers New Q& As Employment resources on Lexis+® Lex Talk® Employment: a Lexis® Nexis community Daily and weekly news alerts Recruitment CIPD Trust issues guidance for HR Professionals on hiring and supporting refugees The CIPD Trust has released comprehensive guidance for HR professionals on recruiting and retaining refugees in UK organisations. It sets out key practical and procedural steps, from documentation checks and HR policy familiarisation to understanding where employment practices may diverge from those in refugees’ home countries. The guidance urges employers to establish structured support, including training for hiring managers on refugee-specific challenges, thorough induction programmes, and ongoing two-way...
Dybowski v (1) The Bishop of Llandaff Church In Wales High School and (2) Staffroom Education Ltd ( ET case number 1601681/2023 and 1601682/2023) Employment Judge Sarah Moore dismissed religious harassment and discrimination complaints brought by teaching assistant Benedykt Dybowski against The Bishop of Llandaff Church In Wales High School and the agency that placed him, Staffroom Education Ltd, as set out in a ruling released on 17 February 2025. The tribunal found the school’s response was appropriate in dismissing Dybowski and referring him to a regulator after he publicly asserted that ‘true’ marriage is a union between a man and a woman. He also declared his belief that abortion is murder and criticised Sharia (or Islamic) law......
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When evaluating a general damages claim, the practitioner ought initially to refer to the Judicial College Guidelines (JCG)...
This Practice Note This Practice Note reviews mechanisms used in settling litigation. A Tomlin order consists of a consent order paired with a schedule. It operates to stay proceedings on terms that have been agreed. The provisions contained in the schedule may remain confidential. This Practice Note describes the scope of confidentiality attaching to the schedule and sets out how it differs from a standard consent order. Sample wording for a Tomlin order is included, alongside links to precedents, as well as guidance on court approval. It also addresses varying, setting aside and enforcing a Tomlin order, including the considerations the court will take into account when handling applications for each. Further guidance is provided on interpreting and applying the relevant provisions of the CPR; however, some courts and divisions impose very specific requirements for both drafting and approval, and for approaching the schedule and confidentiality issues. Accordingly, you must consider the particular rules and court guide provisions in the forum where your claim is proceeding when drawing up the Tomlin order...
Date [ date ] Parties [ name of Landlord ] [ of OR incorporated in England and Wales (company registration number [ number ]) with its registered office at ] [ address ] (Landlord) [ name of Tenant ] [ of OR incorporated in England and Wales (company registration number [ number ]) with its registered office at ] [ address ] (Tenant) [ [ name of Guarantor ] [ of OR incorporated in England and Wales (company registration number [ number ]) with its registered office at ] [ address ] (Guarantor) ] [ [ name of Mortgagee ] [ of OR incorporated in England and Wales (company registration number [ number ]) with its registered office at ] [ address ] (Mortgagee) ] Definitions Within this Deed, the terms below shall be interpreted as follows: [ Annual Rent • the annual sum reserved under the Lease; ] [ Insurance Rent • the Tenant’s share of the Landlord’s costs of insuring the Property (as set out in the Lease); ] Lease • the lease of the Property dated [ date ], entered into between (1) [ the Landlord OR [ name ...
I, [ name ], of [ address ], solemnly and sincerely state that: [ Matters to be verified, set out in numbered paragraphs ] I make this solemn statement in good conscience, believing it to be true, and pursuant to the provisions of the Statutory Declarations Act 1835. DECLARED at [ details ] this [ day ] day of [ month and year ] Before me ................................................................................ [ signature of the person before whom the declaration is made ] A [ commissioner for oaths OR [ solicitor OR [ insert other qualification ] ] authorised to administer oaths ]...
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