Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, with reference to his Department's consultation document entitled Make Work Pay: ending one-sided flexibility – reforms of zero hours and similar contracts, published on 2 June 2026, whether his Department assessed the relationship between each proposed hours threshold and the earnings required to meet basic living costs.

The government has published a comprehensive assessment of the potential impacts from the zero hours contract measures in the Employment Rights Act 2025 and will publish further analysis in due course. This includes an assessment of the impact of the measures on low-paid workers.

The government’s preference is for the hours threshold for the right to guaranteed hours to be between 8 and 20 hours per week, on the basis that options in this range are more likely to provide a favourable balance of costs and benefits. A baseline of 8 hours per week mitigates against potential avoidance behaviour of employers moving zero hours workers to contracts with a very low number of hours. We believe that options up to 20 hours per week would be more likely to ensure that workers experiencing one-sided flexibility benefited from the right to guaranteed hours, while balancing the need to be proportionate in the costs to employers and the potential for unintended impacts.