Rights for full-time employees, pregnant workers, agency staff and more could be heading for the chop after senior Tory MPs call for a ‘bonfire’ after we leave the EU.



Prominent Brexiters Michael Gove and John Whittingdale are reported to have called on a business group to draw up a list of workers rights they’d like to see abolished or watered down.

Gove more specifically highlighted a controversial report by Marc Bolland, former chief executive of Marks & Spencer, released in 2013.

According to the Guardian, Whittingdale asked the director general of the CBI:

To what extent has the CBI examined the opportunities which may exist to reduce the burden on business and are you working on an analysis to present to government for potential repeal or reduction?

The remarks were made by Gove and Whittingdale at an event earlier today.

The controversial Bolland report of 2013 set out a series of proposals to slash vital employee rights, including:

– Stop requiring some firms to offer 20 weeks’ maternity leave on full pay

– Exempting micro-enterprises from all new employment law proposals where possible

– Oppose EU plans for a new directive controlling shale gas exploration

– Reconsider rules that give the same rights to agency staff as full time workers.

… and much more. The TUC is fully opposed to any cuts to employee rights.

The Tories couldn’t go ahead with much of the recommendations in 2013 due to EU rules and because the Lib Dems blocked them.

But they are in a hurry to burn those employee rights now