Ban on replacing sacked staff with agency workers in fire and rehire crackdown

Bad bosses will be banned from using agency staff to replace sacked employees as ministers close a loophole in workers' rights reforms.

The Employment Rights Bill, which is going through the House of Lords, seeks to ban fire and rehire tactics, where workers are forced onto worse terms to keep their jobs.

A new amendment will be laid this week to beef up the legislation to stop firms from firing workers and replacing them with agency staff.

Ministers want to prevent a repeat of the row when P&O Ferries sacked some 800 seafarers in March 2022 and replaced them with low-paid agency staff.

Writing in the Mirror, Deputy PM Angela Rayner said: "Businesses will still have the flexibility to hire contractors or agency workers to meet their needs.

"But these new changes will stop employees being replaced by others doing essentially the same job under worse conditions.

"We promised to call time on scandals like P&O and with this amendment we are removing any doubt. It’s about time."

Read Angela Rayner's op ed in full below

Like many Mirror readers, I know what it’s like working hard and struggling to bring up a family on low and unpredictable pay, never knowing if I’d be able to make ends meet.

Just over a year ago, we came into government with a commitment to deliver change for working people – and we’re getting on with the job.

Interest rates have been cut four times – a cost-of-living boost for every single person in Britain with a mortgage.

Three and a half million people got a huge boost to their pay packets in April thanks to our changes to the national minimum wage.

We’re creating new jobs – 384,000 since the election – and helping hardworking families by rolling out breakfast clubs, meaning a £450 boost for parents.

But I get that people are impatient for change. That’s why our plan to Make Work Pay is so personal to me.

We committed to waste no time once we were in government to making work fairer, more secure and more family-friendly, especially for the lowest-paid and facing poor working conditions.

Our landmark Employment Rights Bill going through Parliament will go even further to change lives.

This includes an end to the kind of disgraceful fire and rehire practices we all remember from the P&O scandal in 2022 that become a byword for business at its worst.

That’s why today I can tell Mirror readers we are going further – this week we will be amending this landmark Bill to close loopholes so that people cannot be fired and replaced with agency workers.

Businesses will still have the flexibility to hire contractors or agency workers to meet their needs.

But these new changes will stop employees being replaced by others doing essentially the same job under worse conditions.

We promised to call time on scandals like P&O and with this amendment we are removing any doubt. It’s about time.

Because for years, the good and secure jobs our parents and grandparents relied on have been replaced by low paid, insecure work.

That’s been bad for workers and bad for the economy.

But thanks to our pro-growth Bill, over 15 million people stand to benefit.

That’s why, as well ending disgraceful fire and rehire tactics, we’re also banning exploitative zero hours contracts and giving every worker basic protections from their first day on the job – making sure they can’t be sacked unfairly or threatened with dismissal for refusing lower terms and conditions, and can get sick pay when they need it.

These historic changes will deliver for millions.

More job security means more money spent on our high streets, more people able to get on the housing ladder and more prosperity across the UK.

This is what we promised to deliver, as part of our Plan for Change. It’s a promise made, and a promise kept.