Allow union access and e-ballots: calculation note

Central fiscal result

+£0.3bn - Net public-finance impact in 2027-28

Low case: +£0.0bn. High case: +£2.0bn. Positive numbers are fiscal costs or borrowing pressure. Negative numbers are Exchequer savings or receipts.

Scenario and baseline

• Give unions workplace access rights and allow secure electronic ballots for statutory votes.
• Baseline is current law and published official data unless stated.
• Private business costs are excluded unless they affect tax or procurement.
• Target year is 2027-28, with later years shown separately.

Affected population

• Unit is employers, unions and workers.
• DBT estimates union density at 22.0%.
• Public-sector density is 49.9%; private-sector 11.7%.
• Bargaining coverage, not membership alone, drives wage effects.

Gross impact

• Official union-access cost is about £0.002bn EANDCB.
• Central fiscal case adds public-employer HR and dispute risk.
• Private wage effects are not direct fiscal costs.
• Public pay spillover is capped at £0.25bn central.

Fiscal build-up, central case

• Public-employer HR compliance: +£0.05bn
• Electronic ballot systems: +£0.03bn
• Public-sector dispute and pay pressure: +£0.25bn
• Lower paper-ballot administration: -£0.03bn

Central net impact: +£0.3bn in 2027-28.

Behaviour and pass-through

• Low case assumes administrative change only.
• Central assumes modest public-sector wage/dispute spillover.
• High case assumes faster unionisation and disputes.
• Private-sector wage effects are off-budget.
• No productivity gain is assumed.

Phasing

• 2026-27: +£0.1bn. Access rules start.
• 2027-28: +£0.3bn. Bargaining response.
• 2028-29: +£0.5bn. Coverage may rise.
• 2029-30: +£0.7bn. Settlement effects grow.

Main source groups

• Department for Business and Trade, "Trade union membership, UK, 1995 to 2024" (2025): DBT estimates union density at 22.0%, with 49.9% public and 11.7% private density; sets the current collective-bargaining baseline.
• OECD and AIAS, "United Kingdom: collective bargaining indicators" (2025): OECD/AIAS report UK collective bargaining coverage of about 40.2% in 2024; provides institutional context for bargaining expansion.
• House of Commons Library, "Trade unions and industrial relations" (2026): Commons Library summarises trade-union law and industrial-relations rules after the ERA; defines the legal baseline for repeal options.
• Department for Business and Trade, "Employment Rights Act 2025 - Economic Analysis" (2026): The ERA economic analysis estimates around £1bn annual direct business cost before social-care bargaining; provides official baseline costs and affected groups.
• Farber, Herbst, Kuziemko and Naidu, "Unions and Inequality Over the Twentieth Century" (Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2021): Unionisation historically reduced wage inequality, partly by compressing pay within and across workplaces; explains who may gain from collective-bargaining reforms.
• Frandsen, "The Surprising Impacts of Unionization" (Journal of Labor Economics, 2021): Unionisation can raise earnings for covered workers while shifting costs to employers; relevant to bargaining reforms and incidence, but not a fiscal costing.
• Green Party of England and Wales, "Workers' Charter 2026" (2026): Used to define the pledge wording, policy scope and implementation scenario being modelled.