- Location: Croydon’s IKEA on Purley Way, January 12.
- Announcement: Day-one paternity rights and bereavement support.
- Part of: Government’s employment protections expansion.
- Beneficiaries: Over 5 million London workers affected.
- Key Reforms: Immediate parental leave; new sick pay access.
Business Secretary Peter Kyle and Croydon West MP Sarah Jones joined the PM for a morning of talks with IKEA employees over the changes, which the government claims will improve rights for two million workers in London.
The ability to unpaid parental leave from the first day of a new work is one of the improvements that will take effect in April as part of the recently passed Employment Rights Act. According to the government, this will allow an extra 1.5 million parents to share childcare duties right now instead of having to wait many months as in the past.
Speaking to the LDRS inside a bedroom showroom in the bowels of IKEA, Sir Keir said:
“It is no good saying to a new dad that you will have to wait to spend time with your newborn.”
Sharing his own personal experience of fatherhood, the PM added:
“I think it is really important because I was between jobs when my boy was born, and I genuinely believe the bond between me and him is much stronger.”
In April, a new Bereaved Partner’s Paternity Leave will also go into effect, giving fathers and partners up to 52 weeks of leave if their partner passes away before their child turns one. The amendment “ensures that new parents and their employers have a clear route for support at one of the most difficult moments imaginable,” according to prominent Bereaved Partners’ Paternity Leave advocate Aaron Horsey.
A day-one right to statutory sick pay, a prohibition on zero-hour contracts, the right to guaranteed hours, and the ability to file an unfair dismissal action after six months instead of two years are among the additional measures being presented in Parliament today. Beginning in April, the government will raise both the National Living Wage and the National Minimum Wage.
He told the LDRS:
“If people are protected at work it is good for them, and it is good for business. We have come to IKEA because one of the things we have been saying is that good employers are already doing this.”
He thinks that individuals will be able to spend more on their local high streets, especially Croydon, thanks to the measures’ enhanced flexibility and discretionary money. He stated,
“It becomes circular and that is important.”
The PM discussed his personal ties to Croydon during the interview with LDRS and Newsquest.
“I grew up on the Surrey/Kent border; for the Starmer family, coming to the Whitgift Center in Croydon was a really good day out,”
he stated.
The PM talked to employees about the store itself, which has become a landmark in Croydon with its tall, dormant smokestacks, rather than job rights.
He gave special recognition to one employee who has worked at the Purley Way store since it opened in 1992, when the location was still a field next to the disused Croydon B power plant.
“We have also talked about sofas and the food,“
he laughed, adding that he particularly enjoys the chain’s vegetarian meatballs.
Which bereavement support measures were included in the reforms?
The Department for Transport calculates red, amber, green( RAG) conditions for 154 English original trace authorities using 11 numeric criteria grouped into condition, spend, and stylish practice orders, each scored 0- 100 and combined into an overall assessment.
Individual order scores use fixed thresholds 0- 45( red), 45- 80( amber), 80- 100( green). Overall conditions apply stricter cutoffs, taking balanced performance across pillars Greenwich scored red primarily due to low preventative conservation allocation( 54 vs. 83 in green- rated Lewisham).
June 2025 data submission yielded Greenwich’s red standing despite£ 2.8 m spend rising to£ 4.4 m, as DfT barred gritting/ islands and applied static nascences council controversies turning 300- afar network assessment banning TfLA-roads.
