In the latest edition of our Need to Know employment law newsletter we’re looking at the big changes coming with the removal of the Unfair Dismissal Compensation Cap, reviewing the draft regulations for Bereaved Partners’ Paternity Leave, considering the implications for employment status from a volunteer coastguard’s recent Court of Appeal ruling, and analysing the emerging trends in UK Visas and Immigration enforcement activity.
- Removal of the Unfair Dismissal Compensation Cap: Preparing for a Seismic Shift
- Draft Regulations for a Bereaved Partner’s Paternity Leave
- Stormy waters for employment status? Court of Appeal deems volunteer coastguard a worker
- Patterns and Trends in UKVI Enforcement and Sponsorship Compliance: A 2025–26 Analysis
We have also included our usual HR Bullets, which cover other significant employment law updates from the past month.
HR Bullets
- The Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) upheld a finding that that cleaners originally employed by contractors could not claim indirect race discrimination under s.41 Equality Act 2010 for a pre-TUPE transfer period because contract workers cannot challenge their own employer’s pay terms unless the new employer dictated them. However, the EAT found that post-TUPE transfer, the Respondent paying higher rates only to non‑transferred staff was indirectly discriminatory as it disproportionately disadvantaged the predominantly BAME group of transferred cleaners
Alpha Anne and others v Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Foundation Trust [2026] EAT 15 - The Court of Appeal held there was no TUPE transfer in the merger of six NHS clinical commissioning groups (CCG) because the merging CCGs were not carrying out an “economic activity”. Commissioning healthcare services involves purchasing rather than providing services so no economic entity existed to transfer.
Bicknell and anor v NHS Nottingham and Nottinghamshire Integrated Commissioning Board [2026] EWCA Civ 21 - The Employment Tribunal (ET) held that female nurses were harassed when Darlington NHS Trust required them to share a changing room with a transgender woman without providing alternatives nor addressing their concerns. It also upheld indirect sex discrimination, finding that allowing access to single‑sex spaces based on self‑declared gender (only) disadvantaged women, who are more likely to experience distress when undressing.
Hutchinson and others v County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust ET 250119224 and others - An Engineering Supervisor was dismissed for gross misconduct after failing to remove a known faulty forklift charger, which caused an electric shock to a colleague. The Employment Tribunal (ET) found the dismissal fair despite procedural flaws, and the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) upheld this, ruling that investigators also giving witness evidence and late disclosure did not automatically make the dismissal unfair.
Lamb v Teva UK Ltd [2026] EAT 8 - The Claimant, a Black African employee, alleged direct race discrimination after receiving delayed, poor‑quality feedback on an unsuccessful promotion bid. The Employment Tribunal (ET) found a case and upheld the claim. The EAT overturned this, ruling the ET had relied on irrelevant factors such as other unsuccessful applications, the race of successful candidates, and wider BAME progression concerns, which did not indicate discriminatory delay.
London Ambulance Service NHS Trust v Sodola (Debarred) [2026] EAT 6 - The Court of Appeal upheld the Employment Appeal Tribunal’s (EAT) strict time‑limit approach. The Claimant’s first appeal was late as it was filed after the 4pm deadline, and her second lacked mandatory documents. She had neither substantially complied nor given a good explanation to the court for the delay, and the omission was not a minor error therefore the claim was not in time.
Mulumba v Partners Group (UK) Ltd [2026] EWCA Civ 30 - The Claimant was dismissed under a performance model requiring readiness for promotion and claimed unfair dismissal and discrimination arising from disability linked to absences for endometriosis surgery. The ET found the dismissal unfair due to the Respondent breaching its own policy but applied a 100% Polkey reduction, assuming the Claimant would have been fairly dismissed under a different, hypothetical policy. The EAT overturned this, holding the ET was wrong to assume the Respondent would have introduced a new policy and also failed to properly assess whether the Claimant’s endometriosis was a disability and whether the Respondent had knowledge of it.
Pal v Accenture (UK) Ltd [2026] EAT 12