Today, I voted to protect holiday pay entitlements and safe working limits following the Government’s admission that employment protections are being reviewed to see which to scrap and which to keep.

Despite repeated but vague promises from Ministers that they have no plans to rip up the rights of workers, it has now been revealed that the Government will consult on changes which could mean:

• Ending the inclusion of overtime in how holiday pay is calculated, leaving workers hundreds of pounds out of pocket
• A longer working week, with no legal cap on the number of hours employers can make their employees work
• An end to the legal right to rest breaks at work

Analysis by the Labour Party has revealed that key workers including care workers, haulage drivers and police officers would lose out on hundreds of pounds a year under the plans being considered.

Under the current rules, workers are entitled to a week’s pay for each week of statutory leave that they take, and employers have to include regular overtime in how a week’s pay is calculated. For example, if your pay is set at £250 a week but in practice you usually earn £300 a week due to regular overtime hours, the higher figure should be used to calculate your holiday pay.

Scrapping these rules would mean the pay workers are entitled to while on holiday would be lower – calculated from a base hourly rate, without overtime.

Analysis by Labour can reveal that removing overtime from calculations of holiday pay would mean:

• A nurse would lose £258.40 a year
• A care worker would lose £239.60 a year
• A police officer would lose £308 a year