Labour MPs attack Starmer U-turn over workers’ rights as ‘complete betrayal’
Keir Starmer is facing backbench anger after ministers abandoned plans to give workers day-one protection against unfair dismissal, a U-turn that breaches the Labour manifesto,MPs including a former minister who spearheaded the employment rights bill with the former deputy leader Angela Rayner have voiced concerns over the climbdown announced by the government,Ministers have axed the proposal to remove the 24-month “qualifying period” for workers to make an unfair dismissal claim and allow them to do so from the first day in a new job, to try to get the legislation through parliament,The bill was caught in a standoff between peers and MPs over the original plan to give workers the protection on day one, as well as measures to ban “exploitative” zero-hours contracts,The government now intends to introduce the right over unfair dismissal after six months of service instead, while other day-one rights to paternity leave and sick pay are still due to go ahead, coming into effect in April 2026.
The Labour MP for Middlesbrough and Thornaby East, Andy McDonald, described the move as a “complete betrayal” and vowed to push for its reversal,He said: “We cannot support that halfway measure,”He added: “This is a wrong-headed move and I will campaign to have this concession reversed,”The Labour MP for Poole, Neil Duncan-Jordan, said: “There has been no discussion with the PLP [parliamentary Labour party] about this,The Lords don’t have primacy over a manifesto commitment, so why have we capitulated?”The Labour MP for York Central, Rachael Maskell, said: “Employers have nothing to fear from day-one rights, but workers have everything to fear from an employer who doesn’t want day-one rights.
”The former employment minister Justin Madders, who was sacked in the prime minister’s reshuffle earlier this year, said it “definitely is a manifesto breach”.Labour’s manifesto explicitly promised to “consult fully with businesses, workers, and civil society on how to put our plans into practice before legislation is passed”.“This will include banning exploitative zero-hours contracts; ending fire and rehire; and introducing basic rights from day one to parental leave, sick pay and protection from unfair dismissal,” it said.The education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, said there was a “very real prospect” the implementation of the employment rights bill would have been delayed if the government had not made a U-turn over day one protections against unfair dismissal.“There has been discussion on the point around unfair dismissal and the time period between businesses, the TUC and government, and following that discussion there’s been agreement about the way forward, which is welcome,” she told Sky News.
“It means that the time limit will come down from two years to six months, and that runs alongside important day-one rights around sick pay and around parental leave,But the risk here was that if we didn’t make progress, those important rights wouldn’t come into force from April next year,”Asked if it was a broken promise, Phillipson said: “In the manifesto, what we said was that we would work with trade unions, with business, with civil society, in consulting on those protections that we’d be bringing forward,“So, there are both parts to that, within the manifesto, the important rights and the consultation,”
We older people are always a footnote | Brief letters
As one of your older readers, I was looking forward to reading the interesting article on the five epochs of brain development (Brain has five ‘eras’, scientists say – with adult mode not starting until early 30s, 25 November). But why was I not surprised to find the final two epochs given just one sentence between them?Dave HeadeyFaringdon, Oxfordshire I was delighted to find out that the Royal Opera House is replacing its 26-year-old stage curtains. Perhaps the old ones could be reused to make new riser cushions for the stage of Huddersfield town hall. We’re still waiting to be levelled up. (See my Guardian letter, 14 February 2022
Expert panel advises against prostate cancer screening for most men in UK
Prostate cancer screening should not be made available to the vast majority of men across the UK, a panel of expert government health advisers has said, to the “deep disappointment” of several charities and campaigners.The UK National Screening Committee (UKNSC) has instead recommended that there should be a targeted screening programme for men with a confirmed BRCA1 or BRCA2 faulty gene variant, which means they are more at risk of faster growing and aggressive cancers at an earlier age. Men in that category could be screened every two years between the ages of 45 and 61, they said.The committee found that the “harms would outweigh the benefits” if it were to recommend prostate cancer screening for all men or for men with a relevant family history of cancer, as it could lead to a small reduction in the number of prostate cancer deaths but “very high levels of over-diagnosis”.When it came to screening black men, who have an elevated risk of prostate cancer, the committee found current evidence to be “lacking and uncertain”
What is prostate cancer and should I be worried if I wee a lot at night?
Prostate cancer is cancer that starts in the prostate gland, a small gland that sits just below the bladder and makes part of the fluid that forms semen. It is the biggest cause of cancer in men in the UK, with about 55,300 diagnoses and 12,200 deaths a year. It is the second most common form of cancer, after breast cancer. In many men, prostate cancer grows slowly, but in some it can grow and spread more quickly.The incidence of prostate cancer has risen by 55% since the early 1990s
Wes Streeting calls BMA ‘impossible’ and says they made ‘misleading’ claims
Wes Streeting has accused the British Medical Association (BMA) of being “impossible” and issuing “misleading” information in an escalation of tensions with the doctors union.In an unusual move, the health secretary wrote on Thursday to England’s 50,000 GPs to convey his frustration with the BMA over recent changes that from last month made it easier for patients to contact them online between 8am and 6.30pm Monday to Friday.He has underlined his concern about the union’s behaviour by ending its longstanding role as the sole negotiator of the annual GP contract that covers doctors’ pay and terms and conditions.Streeting’s letter was prompted by a recent speech by the head of the BMA’s GP committee, Dr Katie Bramall, in which she accused ministers of being “traitors” to their profession and of betraying and lying to them
Ministers set aside £75m to fix failures that caused carer’s allowance crisis
Ministers have set aside £75m to fix systemic failures that caused hundreds of thousands of unpaid carers to be hit with huge bills after unwittingly breaching complex and confusing benefit rules.A damning independent review, published on Tuesday, found that outdated technology, unclear guidance and a failure of leadership by ministers and senior welfare officials had led to punitive sanctions on vulnerable families.It followed a year-long Guardian investigation into how hundreds of unpaid carers had been criminally prosecuted and hundreds of thousands penalised for errors the review concluded were mostly not “wilful rule-breaking”.Pat McFadden, the welfare secretary, promised this week that the government would fix the “mess” he said had been left by previous administrations.The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has said it will reassess 145,000 cases in which people were overpaid carer’s allowance, with some of those debts likely to be struck off or reimbursed
Severe asthma can be controlled by a monthly injection, trial finds
A monthly injection could allow people with severe asthma to stop taking daily steroid tablets, a clinical trial has found.More than 260 million people are thought to have asthma worldwide. While most can control their asthma with inhalers to treat immediate symptoms and preventive ones to reduce inflammation, those with the most severe asthma often take daily doses of oral corticosteroids as well.But long-term use is associated with serious health conditions, including osteoporosis, diabetes and increased vulnerability to infections. Now an international clinical trial has found that participants who received injections of tezepelumab every four weeks were able to reduce or even stop taking their steroids entirely with no ill effects
Foreign interference or opportunistic grifting: why are so many pro-Trump X accounts based in Asia?
London councils enact emergency plans after three hit by cyber-attack
European parliament calls for social media ban on under-16s
ChatGPT firm blames boy’s suicide on ‘misuse’ of its technology
Europe loosens reins on AI – and US takes them off
Macquarie Dictionary announces ‘AI slop’ as its word of the year, beating out Ozempic face