Labour will ban exploitative zero-hours contracts

2nd April, 2015

Am I tough enough – Hell I am

Labour is today setting out our plans to ban exploitative zero-hours contracts.

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We will act so that anyone working regular hours will be legally entitled to a regular contract not a zero-hours contract. The new legal right will kick in after 12 weeks – earlier than previously expected because of evidence that the problem has grown.

In the last year the number of people on zero hour contracts has grown by nearly 20%.
There are now 1.8m zero hour contracts in Britain, more than the populations of Cardiff, Glasgow and Leeds combined.

Ed Miliband is also making a personal commitment that legislation to ban exploitative zero-hours contracts will be in Labour’s first Queen’s Speech, putting an end to a symbol of the insecure economy that means the recovery hasn’t reached the homes of working families across Britain.

The Tories have refused to back Labour’s plans to ban exploitative zero-hours contracts. David Cameron last week said that the reason there had been an explosion in zero-hours contracts was because people choose them – but then he admitted he couldn’t live on one.

Labour will prioritise tax cuts for small firms

No one will be surprised that some business people are calling for low taxes for big businesses. That’s nothing new and under Labour Britain will have the most competitive corporation tax rate in the G7.

But whilst the recovery may have reached some firms it hasn’t reached many others which is why we will prioritise tax cuts for the smallest firms with an immediate cut in business rates for 1.5 million small business premises.‎

That’s not anti-business – it’s anti-business as usual. And many business people understand that because they see the low productivity economy we’ve become after five years of wages not keeping up with prices and soaring zero-hours contracts.

We understand that Britain only succeeds when working people succeed. We don’t believe, as David Cameron does, in more tax cuts for the richest in society – the priority is tax cuts for small firms, working people and saving our NHS.

Key messages

Labour has set out a better plan for Britain’s future, a plan that works for working families, rewarding the hard work they do and saving the NHS they rely on.The Tories can’t build a better future for working people because they stand up only for a privileged few. With the NHS going backwards and a recovery which works just for a few, working families can’t afford five more years of David Cameron.

You can’t trust Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats. They broke their promises and have been too weak to stand up to the Tories.

UKIP can’t stand for working people: they’re more Tory than the Tories, a party made up of Tory people, promoting Tory policies, bankrolled by Tory donors.