Low-paid workers promised a better deal under Labour

Labour has unveiled its first big general election offering on workers' rights, with a pledge to end discrimination on sick pay facing low-paid employees.

- DAVID MADDOX, ARCHIE MITCHELL

Just 24 hours after wooing more than 120 business leaders with their economic plans, the Labour leadership is seeking to calm union concerns that they will water down their promises on employee rights.

The intervention on sick pay will help an estimated 1.5 million who are not covered by the rules and either have to work through illness or stay at home without financial support.

The move is part of a delicate balancing act by Sir Keir Starmer to show that he is on the side of both business and working people. His shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves on Tuesday promised to deliver “a government that is pro-worker and probusiness, in the knowledge that each depends upon the success of the other”.

Ms Reeves’s plan will mean those earning less than the £123 a week earnings threshold, who are currently ineligible, will be able to claim statutory sick pay. Labour will also let workers claim the payment immediately, scrapping a four-day waiting period before they can access it.

Ahead of officially unveiling the plans today, Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner said: “Britain is stuck in a sickness doom loop. Low-paid and insecure workers – most of them women – are forced to work through illness or go without financial support when sick. The Tories have failed to fix Britain’s broken sick pay system, and this is adding to NHS backlogs, hitting productivity and harming the working people who keep our country moving.

“Labour will be laser-focused on tackling the problem of sickness at work, strengthening statutory sick pay and scrapping the lower earnings limit. The New Deal for Working People is Labour’s plan to make work pay and deliver employment protections fit for a modern economy.”