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.”
