Labour’s ‘new deal for workers’ will not fully ban zero-hours contracts

Keir Starmer’s party is preparing to announce details of its promise to overhaul workers’ rights if it gets into power – a centrepiece of its early plans for government, but subject to fierce lobbying from businesses.

“Workers are often forced to accept poor conditions and precarious contracts across sectors due to desperation and extreme power imbalances between employers and employees in the UK,” the union’s general secretary, Henry Chango Lopez, said.

But Starmer and his chief of staff, Sue Gray, have come under pressure internally to drop the commitment to begin legislating for it within 100 days – including from some senior party figures – in order to give more time to consult on the different and complex definitions of employment status.

Labour is understood to be finalising a dossier for the implementation of the new deal, combining the original proposals in the green paper and the changes that were agreed at the National Policy Forum (NPF), including on zero hours.

Sharon Graham, the general secretary of Unite, said: “If Labour do not explicitly recommit to what they have already pledged, namely that the new deal for workers will be delivered in full within the first 100 days of office, then a red line will be crossed.

Under the current proposals, the need to serve a qualifying period before gaining basic rights such as sick pay, parental leave and protection against unfair dismissal would no longer apply.