Labour has reportedly watered down its plans to strengthen rights for gig economy and precariously employed workers in a bid to woo business leaders.
The opposition’s National Policy Forum last month agreed a series of changes to the Labour programme as Keir Starmer’s team firms up their policies ahead of an expected general election next year.
In 2021 Sir Keir’s party pledged to create a single status of “worker” in employment law to stop gig economy giants like Deliveroo and Uber from using bogus self-employment to undermine conditions.
But the Financial Times reports that the party’s policy documents now pledge only to consult on “a simpler framework” for differentiating the self-employed from workers.
This new policy would create a system that “could properly capture the breadth of employment relationships in the UK” and ensure workers can still “benefit from flexible working where they choose to do so”, the newspaper says.
Labour is also said to have refined a pledge to give workers full employment rights from “day one”, adding an explicit carve-out for probationary periods in which workers could still be sacked, according to people familiar with the text of the document.
The results of the National Policy Forum are not yet public and are due to be published ahead of the party’s conference in autumn.
Other changes won by the leadership reportedly include dropping commitments to clean air zones, following Sir Keir’s attempt to distance himself from the party’s flagship policy in London under Sadiq Khan.
Labour has been castigated for a series of U-turns under Sir Keir, who has abandoned large parts of the programme on which he won the leadership.
The opposition leader has ditched promises to take water and energy into public ownership, to support EU free movement, and to abolish tuition fees. More recently the party was criticised for watering down promises to invest £28 billion a year in green jobs,
The Independent has contacted Labour for comment.