Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, if he will make an assessment of the prevalence of the practice in the retail and leisure sectors of sending employees home during their shift without notice.

We encourage employers to be clear with their staff up front on how work will be structured. However, the way in which work is arranged, or how shifts are decided upon will depend on each situation and sector. A ‘one size fits all’ solution would not be appropriate.

Where appropriate, Government publishes guidance. For instance, we recently considered the issue of late notice cancellation of shifts for those on zero hours contracts and have published updated guidance on gov.uk.