The Employment Rights Act 2025 received Royal Assent this week. Keir Starmer described the bill as a “major victory for working people in every part of the country”. He added, “We have just introduced the biggest upgrade to workers’ rights in a generation”.
Appropriately enough, the 29 December will be the 50th anniversary of another major piece of employment legislation becoming law: the 1975 Sex Discrimination Act. To mark this, the independent researcher and writer and former government economist, Hilary Cooper, has published an article entitled ‘What was it like to be sixteen and female when the UK’s Sex Discrimination Act (1975) was passed? in the Women’s History Review. She notes, “While there is much to celebrate at this key milestone there is also much unfinished business.”
