The Conservatives’ former employment tsar has accused Rishi Sunak of abandoning the party’s commitment to improving workers’ rights after the business minister said many of the policies in the 2019 manifesto would not be implemented imminently.
Matthew Taylor, who was recruited by Theresa May to conduct a wide-ranging review of Britain’s employment laws, said the government had delayed putting in place many of the measures he recommended in 2017.
He was commenting after Kevin Hollinrake, the business minister, said in a series of written answers that the government had no immediate plans to implement several of the policy proposals that stemmed from that review. Meanwhile, the government is about to unveil its controversial anti-strikes bill that some worry could undermine employment protections further.
Taylor told the Guardian: “There comes a point when repeated delay starts to feel like an abandonment of an agenda. That is a great pity because, at a time when industrial relations are at the forefront, the challenge of improving the quality of work is, if anything, even more urgent than when I wrote my report.”
Taylor, who previously worked as head of the No 10 policy unit under Tony Blair, was recruited by May in October 2016 to lead a review of modern employment. His appointment was seen as a coup for the Conservatives, and a key plank in the party’s attempts to win over economically insecure Labour voters.
May spoke at the launch of the report in 2017, saying: “The...
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