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Employment law brief: 17 April 2026

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After too much Easter nibbling, Ian Smith hops through a flurry of legislative activity & case law
  • Legislative developments dominate, with uprated social security benefits, new measures under the Employment Rights Act 2025 and revised Vento bands for injury to feelings awards.
  • Recent case law, though limited in number, delivers key clarifications on whistleblowing motives, the distinction between reason and motive in discrimination, the scope of COT3 settlements, and the increasingly adversarial approach of employment tribunals.

In spring, a young employment lawyer’s fancy turns to… the statutory instruments containing the uprating of social security benefits, the employment protection maxima and the national minimum wages, along with not one but two commencement orders for the Employment Rights Act 2025. To cap this off we have, not Easter bunnies and chocolate eggs, but the employment tribunal (ET) presidential increases of the Vento scales for awards for injury to feelings. A heady mix indeed.

Perhaps to compensate for this frenetic activity on the legislative front,

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MOVERS & SHAKERS

WSP Solicitors—David Ashcroft & Jessica O’Shea

WSP Solicitors—David Ashcroft & Jessica O’Shea

Commercial property and child law teams expand with senior hires

Duxton Hill Chambers—Lucas Bastin KC & Joshua Hiew

Duxton Hill Chambers—Lucas Bastin KC & Joshua Hiew

Set expands London and Singapore offering with senior international disputes hires

Gilson Gray—Gregor Duthie & Stephen Forsyth

Gilson Gray—Gregor Duthie & Stephen Forsyth

Firm strengthens real estate and litigation teams with partner promotions

NEWS
Behind the profession’s polished exterior, lawyers are ‘internally drained rather than physically tired’, according to a stark assessment of burnout in legal practice
Five years after the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 came into force, concerns remain that the family courts continue to minimise allegations of abuse in child contact disputes
Uber has built a formidable strategy for insulating itself from liability for drivers’ conduct, but the legal terrain differs sharply between the US and England and Wales
The House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Act 2026 marks a constitutional watershed by severing the centuries-old link between hereditary titles and automatic membership of the upper chamber
The Civil Justice Council’s review of Part III of the Solicitors Act 1974 could mark the end of what one commentator calls an ‘outdated’ and overly technical regime governing solicitor-client fee disputes
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