February 2026

Interim changes to Parental leave and Paternity leave notices

Interim changes took effect from 18 February to ensure parents can give employers the correct notice to take advantage of changes that will come into force from April.

See the sections on the Parental leave changes and Paternity leave changes for more information.

Trade union law changes

Various changes to current trade union laws came into force on 18 February 2026:

Repeal of most of the Trade Union Act 2016

This will include the following:

• Changes to public sector check off: This is where employers deduct trade union subscriptions directly from a union member's pay and transfer it to the union. Previously, this could only be done for public sector employers if the member had an option to pay their union subscriptions by other means, and the union paid the employer's reasonable costs for arranging the payment to them.
• Support threshold for industrial action ballots: This threshold was introduced by the last government and related to sectors deemed to provide important public services. It created an extra requirement that 40% of a trade union's members who are entitled to vote must have voted in favour of the strike action. The 50% turnout threshold is also expected to be removed in April 2026.
• Provision of information requirements: This was introduced by the last government. They created requirements for trade unions to provide additional information, including in voting papers and when providing information to its members.
• Changes to facility time: This is time taken off by employees to perform their trade union duties and activities (called 'facility time'). The last government had powers to require public-sector employers to publish information about taken facility time and to ultimately limit the amount of facility time that would be paid.
• Trade union supervision of peaceful picketing: Previously unions must have supervised any peaceful picketing. This is no longer required.

Changes to rules on giving notice and duration of strike action

A trade union must provide an employer with notice of industrial action after it has secured a ballot mandate and before any action is taken. For the industrial action to be legally protected, the union must give an employer a notice about the action within a minimum period of time.

This was previously 14 days (although the parties could agree to 7 days' notice). It has now changed to 10 days' notice. The notice also no longer has to set out the number of employees that are expected to take part in the action.

Also, previously, trade union members' support for industrial action automatically expired 6 months after the date of the ballot (or 9 months if agreed between the union and employer). This has now changed to 12 months (without the possibility of agreeing an extension).

Increased protection against dismissal for going on strike

This is a ground for automatic dismissal of an employee. The current complex rules (including the protected period and the requirement for an employer to take reasonable steps) have been removed.

Employees on strike are now protected from dismissal both while on an official (lawful) strike and after that strike has concluded. An employee will be automatically unfairly dismissed where the reason (or, if more than one, the main reason) for the dismissal is because they took part in an official strike.