Employment in the news | April 2026

The government is consulting on restricting the use of NDAs in cases of workplace harassment and discrimination, in line with new section 202A of the Employment Rights Act 1996. This voids any NDA that prevents a worker from speaking out about relevant harassment or discrimination, unless it amounts to an "excepted agreement".

The consultation focuses on when an NDA will be an excepted agreement. The government suggests that workers must receive independent written advice from a relevant adviser, express a written preference for entering the agreement, and receive a written copy of it. Workers may also get a 14-day cooling-off period in which to withdraw from the agreement without penalty.

At this stage, the government hasn’t decided whether NDAs should be valid only if a worker requests one, or if employers should also be able to raise the issue of confidentiality. That’s key to how often it will be possible to rely on an NDA in future.

You can read our more detailed analysis of the proposals here.

Next steps

• The consultation closes on 8 July 2026.
• We expect NDA restrictions to come into force during 2027.

A second consultation focuses on the draft code of practice on the trade union right to access workplaces.

The Employment Rights Act 2025 introduces a new right for independent trade unions to access workplaces – both physically and digitally – to recruit, organise and represent workers and members and facilitate collective bargaining. Unions can exercise the right even if they don’t already have members in the relevant workforce.

The draft code encourages unions and employers to agree access terms voluntarily, if possible, underpinned by a formal process for requesting access. Employers must respond within 15 working days, followed by a 25-day negotiation period. The CAC can impose an access agreement if negotiations fail and can only refuse reasonable access in limited circumstances, for example if an employer already recognises a union. Breaches of voluntary or mandatory access agreements can lead to fines of up to £500,000 for repeated non-compliance.

You can read our article on the new framework here.

Next steps

• The consultation on the draft code of practice closes on 20 May 2026.
• The right to request an access agreement is expected to come into force in October 2026.
• Employers should start planning their response to an access request.

In a non-Employment Rights Act development, the government’s response to last year's consultation on mandatory ethnicity and disability pay gap reporting confirms that reporting will become mandatory for large employers. We expect the government to announce legislation in the King’s Speech on 13 May 2026.

Employers with 250 or more employees will need to report their ethnicity and disability pay gaps, using the existing gender pay gap reporting framework.

Alongside pay metrics, employers will provide a breakdown of their workforce by ethnicity and disability, including the proportion of employees that have declared their ethnicity or disability status. Reporting will be by five broad ethnic groups, with groups being combined for confidentiality reasons if there are insufficient employees in one or more categories. Disability reporting will be a binary comparison of disabled and non-disabled employees, using the Equality Act definition. Employers will need to prepare mandatory action plans for tackling ethnicity and disability pay gaps.

The government suggests enforcement will mirror the existing EHRC approach to gender pay gap reporting.

Click here for further information.

Next steps

• The need for primary and secondary legislation makes it unlikely that mandatory reporting will come into force before April 2028 at the earliest.
• Employers should encourage employees to report their ethnicity and disability status, if they do not already do so, to pave the way for mandatory reporting.