The latest commencement order is not a fresh policy paper but a switch-on instrument with immediate legal consequences. SI 2026/1065, made on 1 October 2026, is the sixth set of commencement regulations under the Employment Rights Act 2025 and brings a further package of provisions into force on 30 October 2026. According to legislation.gov.uk, that package covers stronger sexual-harassment duties, third-party harassment, seafarers’ pay and working conditions, trade union workplace access, trade union recognition changes, and new facilities rights for union officials and equality representatives. (legislation.gov.uk) For readers tracking commencement rather than headline politics, the key point is that 30 October 2026 is now a hard operational date. Employers, unions, advisers and the Central Arbitration Committee will all need to work from that date when deciding which statutory regime applies and whether a case falls under the new rules or the previous framework. (legislation.gov.uk)
The most immediate employment-law change for many organisations is the harassment package. Section 20 of the 2025 Act amends section 40A of the Equality Act 2010 so that employers must take "all" reasonable steps, rather than simply reasonable steps, to prevent sexual harassment. Section 21 inserts a third-party harassment rule into section 40 of the Equality Act 2010, so liability can arise where an employee is harassed in the course of employment by someone who is neither the employer nor another employee and the employer failed to take all reasonable steps to prevent it. Section 22 then provides a regulation-making power to specify what counts as reasonable steps. (legislation.gov.uk) Government material has already signalled the direction of travel. The GOV.UK impact-assessment collection includes separate documents on requiring employers to take all reasonable steps, on third-party harassment, and on enabling regulations to specify preventative steps, while HMRC’s Employer Bulletin has warned employers that the strengthened duty is due to bite in autumn 2026. In practical terms, the legal duty starts on 30 October, but the compliance work needs to be in place before then. (gov.uk)
The same commencement order also activates a substantial trade-union package. Section 59 creates a statutory route for workplace access agreements, allowing qualifying unions to seek physical access to workplaces or other forms of communication with workers for defined access purposes. Section 60 and Schedule 6 continue the overhaul of statutory recognition and derecognition under Schedule A1 to the 1992 Act, while section 64 strengthens facilities rights for union officials and learning representatives and section 65 introduces a statutory framework for equality representatives. (legislation.gov.uk) Those provisions do more than tidy up older law. The explanatory material to the 2025 Act shows that the workplace-access scheme is designed to create formal access agreements between qualifying unions and employers, while section 64 adds rights to accommodation and other facilities where time off is permitted, and section 65 gives recognised equality representatives time off for activities such as promoting equality, consulting the employer and supporting union members on workplace equality matters. (legislation.gov.uk)
The transition rules are where this instrument becomes especially important for live cases. Regulation 4 draws a line by reference to when the Central Arbitration Committee received the relevant application. Where applications under the statutory recognition and derecognition machinery were received before 30 October 2026, many of the new Schedule 6 amendments do not apply, with parallel carve-outs for disputes about bargaining units, bargaining arrangements and derecognition. In plain English, cases already in the CAC system before the commencement date generally continue under the old procedural rules. (legislationtracker.co.uk) That filing-date rule matters because Schedule 6 is not a single narrow amendment. It changes multiple gateways and decision points inside Schedule A1 to the 1992 Act. Policy teams and litigators will therefore need to identify not just the substantive issue in dispute, but the exact statutory route used and the date on which the CAC received the application. (legislation.gov.uk)
Regulations 5 and 6 deal with savings provisions rather than straightforward transition. Their purpose is to preserve the effect of earlier CAC declarations when the amended recognition and derecognition regime comes into force. The explanatory note says regulation 5 preserves the effect of declarations issued before 30 October 2026 for the purpose of the three-year bar on fresh recognition applications in certain unfair-practice or access cases, while regulation 6 preserves earlier declarations of automatic recognition linked to serious employer unfair practices when later derecognition applications are assessed. (legislationtracker.co.uk) This is technical, but the practical point is simple. A change in numbering or statutory wording is not meant to erase the legal significance of earlier CAC findings. Historic declarations still count where the amended legislation expects the CAC to look back at earlier conduct or earlier recognition outcomes. (legislationtracker.co.uk)
Two further transition rules will matter directly to workplace disputes. First, the section 64 changes on facilities for union officials and union learning representatives do not apply to employment tribunal claims based on an employer’s failure to permit time off where that failure occurred before 30 October 2026. Second, section 65 contains a built-in bridge for existing equality representatives: where an employee has been carrying out the relevant functions continuously for at least six months immediately before 30 October 2026 and was appointed or elected under union rules, the new notice and training requirements are treated as satisfied. (legislationtracker.co.uk) That avoids two obvious problems at commencement. It prevents older tribunal disputes from being re-argued under a later standard, and it stops established equality representatives from falling into a temporary legal gap on day one of the new regime. The commencement date still matters, but the instrument is drafted to reduce cliff-edge effects. (legislationtracker.co.uk)
There is also a sector-specific element that should not be missed. Section 56 and Schedule 5 come into force on 30 October 2026, bringing forward the 2025 Act’s seafarers package. The Act’s explanatory notes say Schedule 5 amends the Seafarers’ Wages Act 2023, expands its structure to cover remuneration and working conditions, and renames it the Seafarers (Wages and Working Conditions) Act 2023. (legislation.gov.uk) For transport operators and ports, that means this commencement order is not only about office-based HR compliance or industrial relations procedure. It also completes another stage in the wider sectoral reform programme started by the 2025 Act. (legislation.gov.uk)
The wider policy pattern is now clear. The Employment Rights Act 2025 received Royal Assent on 18 December 2025, with some powers and code-making functions commenced earlier in January, April and July 2026. GOV.UK and Parliament both show a large supporting body of impact-assessment material, and legislation.gov.uk shows that some trade-union and equality-representative provisions were partially commenced earlier for ACAS code purposes before their substantive start date. (legislation.gov.uk) The compliance message is therefore straightforward. Employers should treat 30 October 2026 as a live readiness date for harassment prevention, trade-union access, facilities arrangements and any affected seafarer operations. Unions and advisers should review CAC cases and tribunal matters now, because for several of these provisions the decisive question is not simply what the law says, but exactly when the relevant application or alleged failure occurred. That final point is an inference from the commencement and saving rules, but it is the clearest operational lesson from the instrument. (legislationtracker.co.uk)