UK politics live: Priti Patel says four-day week would have ‘devastating impact’ as smoking ban faces backlash

The government has “no plans” to force businesses to accept employees’ four-day working week requests.

Conservative shadow business secretary Kevin Hollinrake claimed businesses were “petrified” about Labour’s Make Work Pay plans, which The Telegraph reported could include new rights for workers to demand a four-day week.

But a Department for Business and Trade spokesperson denied they would “impose” the working pattern on businesses.

The PA news agency understands any plan to open up “compressed hours” to more workers would not result in bank holiday-style weekends each week, and that employees would usually need to work their contracted hours, even if they choose to over fewer days.

The Whitehall spokesperson said: “We have no plans to impose a four-day working week on employers or employees. Any changes to employment legislation will be consulted on, working in partnership with business.

“Our Make Work Pay plan is designed around increasing productivity and creating the right conditions for businesses to support sustained economic growth. Many employers already provide good, family-friendly conditions for their workers because they know that doing so improves morale and retention.

“We are working in close partnership with business and civil society to find the balance between improving workers’ rights while supporting the brilliant businesses that pay people’s wages.”

Conservative MP Esther McVey has defended a controversial tweet citing a Holocaust-era poem to criticised the government’s proposed smoking ban, despite backlash from Jewish groups who condemned the comparison as “repugnant” and “tasteless”.

The MP for Tatton, who previously served as a minister, shared a shortened version of Martin Niemöller’s 1946 poem “First They Came” on social media.

Ms McVey used the poem to draw a parallel with Labour’s proposed outdoor smoking ban.

The post sparked widespread criticism, with Jewish groups and others denouncing the comparison as highly inappropiate.

Despite the outcry, the Tory MP has not retracter her comments, insisting on the relevance of the poem to her critique of the proposed smoking legislation.

Border Force staff at Heathrow Airport will launch a four-day strike on Saturday in a long-running dispute over rosters.

Around 650 members of the Public and Commercial Services union (PCS) will walk out amid complaints that new rosters are inflexible.

The staff will then work to rule and refuse to work overtime from September 4 to 22.

The union said its research showed that four in five Heathrow Border Force workers suffer from stress at work.

More than one in four have taken time off due to stress or related mental health reasons since the introduction of the new rosters in April, said the union.

Most staff regularly worry about managing home commitments around work, according to the PCS.

General secretary Fran Heathcote said: “This survey shows how badly our members’ wellbeing is being affected by the new roster system.

“These inflexible rosters are preventing parents dropping off and picking up their children from school. Managers could easily resolve the issue by allowing greater flexibility and by agreeing fixed shifts that give our members the chance to plan their caring responsibilities.”

A Home Office spokesperson said: “We appreciate the tireless work that Border Force do to keep our borders safe and secure, and we are committed to continuing our conversations with the union so we can find an agreement that works for both the public and staff.

A YouGov poll has revealed the majority of Britons support banning smoking in pub gardens and outdoor restaurants.

Almost six in ten (58 per cent) of British adults would either tend to support or strongly support banning smoking in pub gardens and outdoor restaurants.

Just over a third (35 per cent) say they would tend to oppose or strongly oppose the idea.

Education minister Baroness Jacqui Smith has dismissed reports of a businesses being forced to accept employees’ demands for a four-day week, saying the government’s plans for flexible working would enable fewer days to be worked through compressed hours.

She told LBC radio: “We think that flexible working is actually good for productivity. So the four-day week that I know is on the front of quite a lot of newspapers today, what we’re actually talking about there is the type of flexible working that enables you to use compressed hours.

“So perhaps instead of working eight hours a day for five days, you work 10 hours a day for four days.

“So you’re still doing the same amount of work, but perhaps you’re doing it in a way that enables you, for example, to need less childcare, to spend more time with your family, to do other things, that encourages more people into the workplace, which is an enormous part of that growth mission.”

Asked about jobs such as teachers who would not be able to do a four-day week using compressed hours, Lady Smith said: “Well, no, and nor can lots of other people, but that doesn’t mean that those people that can do it shouldn’t have the ability to do it.”

Sir Keir Starmer has said the Government will “take decisions” on a potential outdoor smoking ban in an effort to curb preventable deaths and alleviate pressures on the NHS.

Industry leaders have warned that the proposed plans to ban outdoor smoking, including in beer gardens and outside stadiums, would be another “nail in the coffin” for pubs and bars.

According to leaked proposals seen by The Sun newspaper, the Government is set to ban smoking in some outdoor areas to improve public health.

The indoor smoking ban could be extended to cover other locations including small parks, outdoor restaurants and hospitals.

Sir Keir told reporters in Paris: “My starting point on this is to remind everyone that over 80,000 people lose their lives every year because of smoking. That’s a preventable death.

“It’s a huge burden on the NHS, and, of course, it’s a burden on the taxpayer. So, yes, we are going to take decisions in this space.

“More details will be revealed, but this is a preventable series of deaths, and we’ve got to take the action to reduce the burden on the NHS and reduce the burden on the taxpayer.”

The government’s outdoor smoking ban will aim to make “fewer places where you actually can smoke”, education minister Baroness Jacqui Smith has said.

Responding to calls from industry that an outdoor smoking ban would be another ‘nail in the coffin’ for hospitality, Lady Smith told Sky News: “The biggest nail in the coffin of most people in this country is smoking – 80,000 people die every year from smoking related diseases.”

She added: “We will think about all sorts of different ways, as the last time I was in government, we introduced the smoking ban, the first smoking ban, there was a lot of concern at that point about how it was actually going to work.

“I think most people now, including in the hospitality industry, would say our pubs, our restaurants, are much better places because they’re no longer filled with smoke.”

Lady Smith further stated: “What we’re trying to do is to make, both through lifting the age at which you can start smoking, by providing ways in which you can get out of smoking, and by making fewer places where you actually can smoke, we want to make it much more likely that people who are direct active smokers will actually want to give up smoking, and by doing that, safeguard their own health and safeguard the NHS and the pressures that smoking brings onto it.”

Nurseries will have to provide options to parents rather than charge for additional provisions such as food or nappies during Government-funded childcare hours, education minister Baroness Jacqui Smith has said.

She told Sky News: “What we’ve been very clear about in our guidance is where providers feel that they they need to charge for food, for example, or for nappies within the government-funded childcare hours, that has to be something that is optional, so parents need to be able to provide their own nappies or provide the lunch themselves.

“But I do take the point that there is a real challenge for early years providers in delivering this big ramping up of provision.

“It is a very good thing, it’s a very good thing for children, and it’s a very good thing for parents in terms of their work choices, but it is something where we need to continue working very hard alongside the providers, and we will do over the next year to make sure that we’ve got those 85,000 extra places and the 40,000 extra staff that will be necessary in order to enable us to get at least close to that to that entitlement next year.”

government-funded childcare support may not be “plain sailing” for working parents, the Education Secretary has warned.

Bridget Phillipson said early years support is her “number one priority” in government, but her department claimed it must find around 85,000 more childcare places by September 2025 compared with 2023, to expand its free childcare offer.

The government will fund 15 hours per week of free childcare for eligible working parents whose children are between nine months and two years old from Monday 2 September, in addition to an existing similar offer to parents of two-year-olds and 30 hours of free childcare already offered to parents of children aged three and four.

From September 2025, the Department for Education has committed to funding 30 hours of free childcare for most working parents of children between nine months and school age, in line with commitments made by the former Conservative administration.

“This inherited plan comes with significant delivery challenges,” Ms Phillipson said.

“I must warn that for some parents it will not be plain sailing, and while I am excited to see children starting nursery for the first time, or parents being able to increase their working hours, the work for government starts now.”

Public health interventions, like the government’s proposal to ban outdoor smoking, is “the type of thing that perhaps you would expect a government” to implement, education minister Baroness Jacqui Smith has said.

Asked if the government would be taking further action against other unhealthy behaviours such as tackling obesity, Lady Smith told Times Radio: “Actually, what this is, is it’s support for people to be able to live healthy lives.

“It’s support for people to be able to get into the workplace.”

She added: “We want the economy to be growing. We want healthy people able to go into the workplace.

“That strikes me as being the type of thing that perhaps you would expect a government to be doing and I’m pleased that those are the things that we are in the very early days of our government putting into place.”