Britain won a delay in new EU rights for agency workers yesterday but was left increasingly isolated in its battle to bury plans that employers warn will put 250,000 jobs at risk.

Trade unions reacted furiously after John Hutton, the Business Secretary, persuaded EU ministers to back off from a threat to force Britain to give temps full employment rights after just six weeks in the job.

But a vast majority of EU nations vowed to keep pushing for the measure “within weeks”, and some suggested that Britain was only given a delay to avoid inflaming opinion during the ratification of the EU Reform Treaty.

Mr Hutton insisted that Britain would continue to try to change the proposed agency workers’ directive because most full employment rights did not kick in for other workers until they had been in a job for a year.

“This is a litmus test of Europe’s ability to balance the legitimate need for employment security which we clearly accept, with the compelling case for Europe to be as competitive and efficient as it possibly can be,” he said in Brussels yesterday.

John Cridland, deputy director-general of the Confederation of British Industry, welcomed the outcome. He said: “Hundreds of thousands of people prefer to work on a project-by-project basis while employers depend on access to this pool of flexible labour so they can respond to the ebbs and flows of the economy.”

But Brendan Barber, the TUC General Secretary, said: “This is a bad day for rights at work across Europe, but especially in the UK. Contrary to business scare-mongering, this directive would not stop agencies providing temporary staff to employers. It would make it more difficult to undercut wages and conditions and help slow the growth of a two-tier workforce.”

Britain had run out of allies to block the proposal if it had been forced to a vote under the EU’s qualified-majority voting system. Xavier Bertrand, the French Minister of Labour, said that EU ministers backed away only because the EU Reform Treaty – due to be signed in Lisbon next week – was such a sensitive issue in Britain.

Mr Hutton failed to stop the EU from linking the agency workers’ issue to the working time directive that seeks to limit the working week to 48 hours. The Portuguese, who hold the EU presidency, had guaranteed Britain an opt-out if it signed up to temps’ rights. Mr Hutton refused, but other countries including France and Poland made concessions.

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