28 May 2024 , 21:30
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Around 1.5million low-paid workers in the UK will benefit from Labour's plan to boost sick pay rights, figures show.
The party has pledged to strengthen Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) if it wns power, by removing the lower-earning limits and making it available to all. Under the existing system workers earning below an average of £123-per-week do not qualify for the payments if they are off sick.
In response to a written question in the Commons earlier this year, Tory DWP Minister Jo Churchill said there were 1.5million workers earning below the limit in 2022-23.
Labour has also promised to end the standard three-day waiting period before people recieve sick pay. Instead, under the party's New Deal for Working People, it will be available from the first day someone is sick.
Deputy Leader Angela Rayner said: "Britain is stuck in a sickness doom loop. Low paid and insecure workers - most of them women - are forced to work through illness or go without financial support when sick.
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“The Tories have failed to fix Britain’s broken sick pay system, and this is adding to NHS backlogs, hitting productivity and harming the working people who keep our country moving.
"Labour will be laser-focused on tackling the problem of sickness at work, strengthening statutory sick pay and scrapping the lower earnings limit. The New Deal for Working People is Labour’s plan to make work and deliver employment protections fit for a modern economy.”
General Secretary of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) Paul Nowak said: “This change is long overdue. Everybody should have access to sick pay. But many low-paid workers are forced to go without sick pay when they are ill. This is a scandal and totally counterproductive.
“If people cannot afford to stay home when they’re sick, they will take their infections into work and put others at risk. This is what happened during the Covid pandemic – spreading the virus further and faster and placing huge strain on the NHS. Strengthening sick pay is good for workers, businesses and public health. It shows why Labour’s new workers’ rights package is so important.”
But if the party wins power it will also face calls to increase the low level of Statutory Sick Pay - which currently stands at £109.40-per-week. After a year-long inquiry into the sick pay regime, the Work and Pensions Committee said in March it is failing to provide a "basic level of income protection".
MPs on the Committee said a rate in line with Statutory Maternity Pay, which currently stands at £172.48 per week, would "strike the best balance". They added: "We conclude that SSP does not provide adequate support for those who most need protecting from financial hardship during periods of sickness absence."