“Let’s make sick pay work for everyone” demands Rochdale MP Sir Tony Lloyd

Sir Tony Lloyd MP

Rochdale MP Sir Tony Lloyd has signed a pledge demanding a sick pay system that ‘supports all workers and will help the country in the long-term’.

Statutory sick pay in the UK is a legal entitlement paid to those too ill to work who are employed (not self-employed), earn at least £120 a week and have been ill for at least four days in a row.

The rate of statutory sick pay (SSP) is just £96.35 a week, paid by employers for up to 28 weeks and is one of the lowest rates in Europe at around 20% of a worker’s salary. Research by the Express national newspaper in 2020 found the average worker in Europe receives 65% of their salary as pay during a week of sick leave.

The tabloid also revealed that in Denmark, workers are paid 90% of their salary by the local authority after 14 days; Belgium gives its workers a guaranteed full salary for up to 30 days of illness; Norwegians with long term illness are granted a year’s full salary whilst Germans are paid their full salary for six weeks, which then drops to 70% until they are fit to return to work or forced to retire.

Furthermore, a recent poll by the Trades Union Congress (TUC) found two-fifths of workers have said they would have to go into debt or go into arrears on their bills if their income dropped to the current level of sick pay.

With the ongoing pandemic, many workers unable to claim sick pay have been forced to choose between paying the bills and isolating at home. The TUC says a fifth of workers who have been forced to self-isolate so far have received no sick pay or wages at all, whilst four in 10 workers who do qualify would be ‘forced’ into financial hardship.

The petition by the TUC – which so far has over 55,000 signatures –  is demanding the government scrap the minimum earnings threshold for SSP, increase the weekly level to at least £330 per week and to provide employers with resources to afford sick pay for their workers.

Mr Lloyd, who signed the pledge as part of the TUC’s #SickPayForAll campaign, said: “Two million working people are not eligible for any sick pay because they don’t earn enough to qualify. If we are to stop Covid-19 from spreading through our workplaces, workers must be able to afford to self-isolate.

“Low sick pay coverage was a problem before the pandemic began, but this [the pandemic] has brought this issue to the fore.

“That’s why I’m demanding urgent action from this Conservative government to raise sick pay to the level of the real living wage, and make sure that everyone can access it.”

He added that he would “do everything in his power to advocate for a boost to SSP to end the exclusion of low-paid people from sick pay and ensure a decent rate which would allow ill employees to take time away from work without facing hardship.”