Labour accused the government yesterday of doing “the minimum it thought it could get away with” to tackle exploitative zero-hours contracts.

Business Secretary Vince Cable claimed to be “tightening the screws on rogue employers” who “abused” staff who are not guaranteed paid work.

The government plans to bring in laws to ban so-called “exclusivity” clauses where bosses stop employees from working for anyone else even while not offering any hours at all in their own business.

Mr Cable asked business and trade unions to help identify loopholes in proposed legislation that might enable firms to wriggle out of their obligations, for example by offering just a single hour of work.

The senior Lib Dem claimed that “the vast majority of zero-hours contracts have been used responsibly by businesses for many years” — ignoring a massive rise in precarious employment on his government’s watch.

But his Labour counterpart Chuka Umunna slammed “a rising tide of insecurity in the workplace since David Cameron came to office” noting that the Con-Dem coalition was “watering down the rights at work of every working person in this country.”

A proposal to ban exclusivity clauses without addressing the wider problem of zero-hours contracts did not go nearly far enough, he said.

Tuc general secretary Frances O’Grady said there was “much more the government should be doing.”

Workers who “have no idea from one week to the next how many hours or how much pay they’re likely to get” were unable to plan their household budgets, she warned.

Manufacturing firms’ organisation EEF denied the rise in zero-hours work was a problem, saying: “To date government has taken a balanced approach to the regulation of zero-hours contracts which should continue.”

But Young Communist League general secretary Zoe Hennessy pointed out that “well over a million workers — mostly young people — are forced to accept these degrading, exploitative contracts.

“They are unable to take out loans or guarantee paying the rent or utilities bills. The coalition’s plans fall way below the mark.”