Angela Rayner’s seven point plan for workers’ rights sets Labour up for key battle with Tories – if the party’s got the stomach for it
Tomorrow is the first real test of how bold Labour are prepared to go in this conference season – possibly the last before the general election.
Two hundred miles north of Westminster in Liverpool, the party’s deputy leader Angela Rayner will tell the Trades Union Congress about plans to strengthen workers’ rights and union rights, which in the past has been one of the most kinetic and controversial parts of Labour’s policy agenda.
The tone she takes, the content she emphasises and the measures she includes – and leaves out – will reveal much about whether, behind the scenes, Labour is really as confident as it wants to project.
Should Labour choose, this could be one of the most fundamental diving lines of the next election and a key part of Labour’s template for change – opening clear red water between them and the Tories and nudging the national consensus towards workers and away from employers after 13 years of drift in the other direction under Tory rule.
It includes the first steps in the return to mass collective bargaining and a new right to ignore bosses at weekends.
Yet the spin from the top is reassurance, not revolution.
“We want a return to a New Labour settlement on trade union laws. This is about a new working partnership with the unions,” a Labour source told Sky News.
“The New Labour settlement – which had near zero strikes – is our aim,” they added – language designed to appeal to business leaders not appease union barons.
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Others worry some parts of Sir Keir Starmer’s regime appear more than happy to form an alliance with the most truculent left wing Labour union, Unite, to imply this whole agenda was watered down just before the summer at the National Policy Forum discussions between party figures and trade unions.
Anything that jeopardises the headline priority – growth – and impedes improving relations with the unions, is not a priority, they believe.
Yet this all comes at a cost.
“I do worry we’re not prepared to be exciting enough,” said one member of the shadow cabinet wanting the party to go big on the rights agenda.
While some changes to water down the agenda were indeed made pre-summer, and a couple of policy details softened, the vast swathe obtained by Sky News suggests a more meaty agenda than many realise – including a bill promised in the first 100 days of government.
Sky News understands the overall package includes:
• Gradual return of collective bargaining through ‘Fair Pay Agreements’
This is potentially the most far reaching and controversial change, with Labour naming social care – a sector it believes is in massive crisis – as the first sector it intends to target for a new system.
New bodies would negotiate minimum terms and conditions binding on all employees in a sector. This could mean some sectors could have a higher minimum level of pay than the minimum wage. The agreements could cover pay, pensions, working time, holidays, health and safety and training.
Labour concedes this will take time – “we need to get the architecture right” – and that this will not be right for many bits of the economy.
• Ban fire and rehire
At the moment businesses are meant to make contractual changes to employees’ working conditions through agreement but they currently have the right to do so unilaterally by terminating their contracts and re-hiring them on new ones.
This is designed to be used only in “exceptional” circumstances only but Labour says it’s being abused. Labour has committed to outlawing this practice by “adapting unfair dismissal and redundancy legislation to prevent workers being dismissed for failing to agree to a worse contract”.
• ‘Day 1’ employment rights
At the moment, the law leaves workers waiting up to two years to access some of their rights. Labour says it will end this “arbitrary” system and scrap qualifying time for basic rights, such as unfair dismissal, sick pay, and parental leave.
Labour is keen to stress this is not a two-year ban on dismissal and would not impact anyone being given a probationary period by their employer.
• Ban on ‘exploitative’ zero hours contracts
This will give employees the right to request a contract reflecting the hours they work after they have been there for 12 weeks. Workers will have a right to decline to use this right. Labour says some details still need to be worked through on how to do this, and this is one of the areas where the provisions have been watered down before the summer.
• Repeal of 2016 Cameron and 2022 Sunak anti-union legislation
Labour says this will rewind the clock to the 2010 settlement on trade union laws. The 2016 Trade Union Act introduced a new requirement of 50% of union members to vote in a ballot for strike action.
It would also change the laws to allow strikes by electronic ballot rather than on paper, which the party argues brings it in line with how the Conservative Party elects its leader.
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• Right to switch off
Labour said last year it would bring in a “right to switch off” so working from home does not become homes turning into 24/7 offices.
Labour says it is looking at Belgium, where from April companies with 20+ employees must have a written document setting out a policy on the right to disconnect. It’s looking at Italy too, where “smart workers” whose job takes place partially off premises must have a written agreement where bosses “specify technical and organisational measures” so workers have a “right to disconnect from company devices”. And Ireland also has a new code of practice.
However, Labour is clear this does not mean you can “never” speak to employees outside working hours, and points to evidence that overseas, these new rights are not a regular feature of tribunals. In Ireland, for instance, the code has meant employees are adding disclaimers to their emails explaining they don’t expect an urgent response.
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• Minimum wage
Last year Labour called for the minimum wage to be a minimum of £10 per hour. However, the government raised the rate from April to £10.42 for over 23s from £9.50 so Labour may up the ante this conference season. Labour has previously said it would ban unpaid internships except when they are part of an education or training course.
The Tories are desperate to give this agenda the highest profile possible, and expected to go further tightening strike laws in the coming days. It wants to implement anti-strike laws passed last year making unions responsible for minimum levels of workforce in certain sectors, and need to pass secondary legislation to make this work. This is a fight that it wants. Will Labour let the Tories have it by leaning into the issue from tomorrow?
The rumored nomination of Michael Selig follows the CFTC nomination process hitting a snag in September when Brian Quintenz was withdrawn.
A reference to China being an “enemy” of the UK was removed from key evidence for a collapsed spy trial in 2023 as it “did not reflect government policy” under the Conservatives at the time, according to the national security adviser.
In the letter published by parliament’s Joint Committee on National Security Strategy earlier on Friday, National Security Adviser (NSA) Jonathan Powell said Counter Terror Police and the Crown Prosecution Service were aware of the change made by Deputy National Security Adviser (DSNA) Matt Collins.
This would mean the CPS knew the “enemy” reference had been removed before charging the two suspects, according to Mr Powell.
In another letter published on Friday, the director of public prosecutions (DPP) Stephen Parkinson told the committee that it took DSNA Mr Collins more than a year to confirm to prosecutors he would not say China posed a threat to UK national security in court.
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The DPP said a High Court judge ruled in June last year that an “enemy” under law is a state which “presently poses an active threat to the UK’s national security”, prompting the CPS to ask the DNSA whether China fulfilled that criteria.
He added prosecutors did not believe there would be “any difficulty in obtaining evidence” from Mr Collins that China was a national security threat, but added: “This was a sticking point that could not be overcome.”
Mr Parkinson added that the DNSA’s “unwillingness” to describe China as an active or current threat was “fatal to the case” because Christopher Cash and Christopher Berry’s defence teams would have been entitled to call him as a witness.
The DPP added: “This factor is compounded by the fact that drafts of the first witness statement, reviewed by us in July 2025, showed that references to China being an ‘enemy’ or ‘possible enemy’ had been deleted.
“Those drafts would probably have been disclosable to the defence.”
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What do we know about the China spy case?
A final draft of Mr Collins’ statement was sent to then-prime minister Rishi Sunak in December 2023, Mr Powell’s letter said.
“Drafts of a statement provided to DNSA included the term ‘enemy’ but he removed this term from the final draft as it did not reflect government policy,” the letter reads.
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It comes amid a political row over the collapse of the prosecution of Christopher Berry and Christopher Cash last month, who were accused of conducting espionage for China.
Both individuals vehemently deny the claims.
Because the CPS was pursuing charges under the Official Secrets Act 1911, prosecutors would have had to show the defendants were acting for an “enemy”.
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China spy row: Witness statements explained
DPP Mr Parkinson has come under pressure to provide a fuller explanation for the abandonment of the case.
He has blamed insufficient evidence being provided by the government that Beijing represented a threat to the UK at the time of the alleged offences.
The Conservatives have accused Sir Keir Starmer of letting the case collapse, but Labour has said there was nothing more it could have done.
The current government has insisted ministers did not intervene in the case or attempt to make representations to ensure the strength of evidence, for fear of interfering with the course of justice.
Sir Keir Starmer met Chinese premier Xi Jingping in November 2024. Pic: PA
The DNSA and DPP will face questions from the parliamentary committee on Monday afternoon.
The current attorney general, Lord Hermer, and the chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, Darren Jones, will be questioned on Wednesday.
The PM’s spokesman reiterated the government’s position that “what is relevant in a criminal case of this nature is the government’s position at the time of the alleged offences”.
Politics
Who is Lindsay Whittle? The man who stood unsuccessfully in Caerphilly 13 times, then won on the 14th try
Lindsay Whittle stood for election in Caerphilly 13 times since 1983 – and on the 14th attempt, he finally succeeded.
In the process, the 72-year-old local boy – nicknamed “Mr Caerphilly” – humiliated the Labour Party, which had held the Senedd seat since its creation in 1999 and the Westminster constituency for over a century.
Born in the miner’s hospital, Mr Whittle lived in a council house and grew up in the town, located to the north of Cardiff, that he now represents.
A lifelong Plaid Cymru activist, his interest in politics was first piqued in the 1960s. He said he even missed an O Level (GCSE) exam in the 1970s because he was out canvassing for the party.
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Watch Lindsay Whittle’s victory speech.
Mr Whittle was first elected in 1976 to represent the Penyrheol and Trecenydd ward on Rhymney Valley district council, and he was re-elected repeatedly until the council was abolished in 1996.
He then contested the Penyrheol ward on the new Caerphilly County Borough Council, created in 1995, and was elected to represent it seven times. He served as the council’s leader for two periods between 1999 and 2004, and has also served as Plaid Cymru’s group leader on the council since 2022.
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Plaid Cymru is ‘ready to lead Wales’, party leader Rhun ap Iorwerth told Sky News.
But, despite his success at the local level, Mr Whittle was only able to secure election to the then Welsh Assembly once in six attempts since its creation in 1999, becoming an MS on the South Wales East list 2011, before losing his seat in 2016.
In those five years in Cardiff, he was appointed Plaid Cymru’s spokesperson for Social Services, Children, and Equal Opportunities, and he was able to work on his key political interests of housing and local government, as well as combating homelessness.
Lindsay Whittle in front of the Caerphilly Castle after his victory. Pic: PA
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Election by the people of his hometown of Caerphilly has always eluded him, however, having lost the 13 other elections for Westminster and the Senedd that he has stood in throughout a lifetime in Welsh politics.
But that all changed last night when he was elected with a majority of nearly 4,000 votes to take over from the late Hefin David, the beloved Labour representative to whom he paid tribute in his victory speech.
Lindsay Whittle speaking to Sky’s Jon Craig at the election night count in Caerphilly. Pic: PA
Speaking to our chief political correspondent Jon Craig as dawn broke over the town he was born in and now represents, Mr Whittle said: “I would need to be a poet to put into words how I genuinely feel about the honour that all the people of Caerphilly have bestowed upon me.
“Almost half of the people who went out to vote, just 2% short of half of the people, put their confidence in Lindsay Whittle and Plaid Cymru. I cannot tell you what an honour that is.”
He added: “Retirement is not for me. I’m not the sort of guy who relaxes on beaches. In fact, I don’t think I ever relax. It’s people. It’s people that make me carry on.”
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