Unpaid leave extended to 4.5m parents with children under 16

Unpaid leave will be extended to all those with families under 16 in case they need to look after a sick child or want to give them emotional support during exam times.

Unpaid leave is only available at the moment until the youngest child is six.

The new plan will allow 4.5m parents to take unpaid leave

The extension, which will benefit an extra 4.5million parents, was a key union demand at Labour's national policy forum which ended yesterday.

Ministers did not cave in to more extreme calls for legalising flying pickets and higher taxes for top earners but there were notable concessions on workers' rights.

Union money now accounts for 90p in £1 donated to Labour.

Gordon Brown has already spoken in favour of extending the right to request flexible working to parents until children reach 16 because he believes chaining staff to their desks for the traditional 9am to 5pm working day is helping to breed unruly youngsters.

But Neil Carberry, the CBI's head of employment policy, said giving staff time off  -  even unpaid  -  could prove disastrous for small firms, which operate on skeleton workforces.

Businesses were already having to plan ahead for the extension of maternity leave to 12 months and having to deal with requests for flexible working for those with children aged five or under, he added.

'In the current economic climate, now is not the time to burden them with another employment regulation,' he said.

Tory work and pensions spokesman Chris Grayling added: 'The one thing Britain cannot afford to do right now is place more regulations and burdens on our businesses.

'The worry is that in Gordon Brown we have Britain's weakest ever Prime Minister and he has just had to give way to union demands.'

Since 2003, 3.6million parents of children under six and disabled children under 18 have had the right to request flexible working patterns. It has since been extended to
2.65million carers of adults.

Employers can decline the requests, but they have to give one of eight valid business reasons for doing so and 95 per cent are granted.

Last year the Tories pledged to extend flexible working rights to all parents with children under the age of 18.

During the talks at Labour's policy forum, held at Warwick university, ministers also gave way to demands for the voting age to be lowered to 16, lowering the age limit from 22 to 21 for the full rate minimum wage and to extend it to all those taking apprenticeships.

The Government was also forced to agree to consider plans for a fully-elected House of Lords.

New rights for agency staff and to workers to ask for time off to go on training courses to improve their skills are also thought to be in a package of measures agreed by the unions and Labour officials.

All the measures will be considered for inclusion in Labour's manifesto if they are passed at the annual party conference.

The forum also supported Mr Brown policies for new nuclear plants, NHS reforms such as longer GP opening hours, the shake-up of welfare payments and 42 day detention without charge for terror suspects.