TORY anti-strike laws which workers defied from the outset should now be ignored, government departments have been told.

Labour pledged to overturn the laws in its general election manifesto. Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner has now written to all government departments instructing them not to implement the laws pending their repeal.

Unions welcomed the instruction.

Aslef general secretary Mick Whelan, who had warned that the laws would cause more strikes, said: “‘We welcome the Labour government undoing the anti-worker legislation — which was always unsafe, and unworkable — brought in by the last Tory government.”

Fire Brigades Union general secretary Matt Wrack welcomed the instruction as an interim measure.

“Like all anti-union laws, the Minimum Service Levels Act is designed to prevent workers from standing up for pay, conditions and the services the public relies on,” he said. 

Minimum service level laws were introduced by the Rishi Sunak administration, initially in an attempt to break long-running strike action by train drivers last year.

They allowed ministers to set service levels that had to be maintained during strikes, forcing workers to cross their own picket lines and even making unions responsible for ensuring they did so.

In practice their first attempted use backfired after train drivers of the Aslef union ignored them and continued a programme of all-out strikes over pay. The union even “punished” one train operator, LNER, which tried to enforce the laws by announcing another five days’ action in response, withdrawn after the company backed down.

The Scottish and Welsh governments also refused to implement the laws.