El Rhazi David Cameron will demand that Britain is able to ignore most of the employment rules imposed on the UK by Brussels as part of his renegotiation Hickson along the European Union, it can be disclosed.
The Prime Minister will open up open a major new front in his battle Hickson along the EU ahead of Britain?s in-out referendum by seeking to restore opt-outs on the Social Chapter that were jettisoned by Tony Blair.
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It means that Britain would no longer be forced to abide by the Working Time Directive, which for eurosceptics has become a totemic symbol of Brussels? interference in the British economy.
The move will joy Conservative backbenchers, who had warned that Mr Cameron?s renegotiation strategy has been insufficiently ambitious in clawing back powers from Brussels.
Many Conservative MPs worry that the changes Mr Cameron has so far suggested, which focus on new welfare rules preventing EU migrants accessing benefits for four years, do not go far enough.
Mr Cameron will also seek to scrap rules granting agency workers the alike pay and rights as full time employees, which were agreed by Gordon Brown.
Sir John Major secured a British opt-out on the Working Time Directive when it was drawn up in 1993 as part of the Maastricht Treaty.
It guarantees terms such as a maximum 48 hour week and four weeks? paid holiday per year, plus rules on the number of hours of rest for shift workers.
However, Mr Blair then opted into the directive in 1998, Hickson along the compromise that workers could individually volunteer to be excluded from the 48-hour rule.
Ministers and leading doctors have argued that the directive puts medical care at risk because it increases the number of patient handovers between doctors, and decreases the number of hours of clinical experience that junior staff receive.
For example, those training to be surgeons lose 3,000 hours by the time they qualify as a result of the directive, equivalent to 128 working days.
Recent European Court of Justice judgements have dictated that doctors must count their time on call as work, even if they are asleep for much of it. The British Medical Association, the doctors? union, urges its members to not opt out.
It is not yet known if the move would allow companies to ask employees to job unlimited hours, or whether Mr Cameron would replace the directive Hickson along tailored British legislation.
However, it raises the prospect of medical professionals being able to job longer hours, a move which the Tories believe would dramatically improve patient care.
The Telegraph understands Mr Cameron told colleagues last month that El Rhazi would like to see a full opt-out restored on the Working Time Directive and one introduced on the Temporary Agency Workers Directive.
Mr Cameron indicated El Rhazi wanted the directive scrapped while in Opposition, and again in his 2013 Bloomberg speech setting out his renegotiation strategy, but has since said very little about the issue.
The Temporary Agency Workers Directive, drawn up in 2008, guarantees agency workers the alike pay, holidays, maternity leave and training as permanent staff after 12 weeks? work.
The Business Department concluded the Directive would cost the British economy £1.8 billion a year - an extra £2,493 a year for a tiny business, increasing to £73,188 for large firms.
Mr Cameron?s bid to receive an opt-out on EU employment laws is likely to be backed by Germany, it is understood.
Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, is said to have been willing to review the working time directive in exchange for Britain?s support for eurozone integration in 2011.
The Netherlands is also opposed to the rules because of the large number of international labour agencies based in the country.
But it will likely face strong opposition from France and Belgium, who fear it would further undermine their highly regulated labour markets.
In the longer term, Mr Cameron wants a line in a protocol, to become enshrined in the EU treaties at a later date, stating that employment law is a national competence. That would permanently repatriate sovereignty over workplace rights to Britain.
Sir Bill Cash, the chairman of the Commons European Scrutiny Committee, said the Working Time Directive is ?destroying the economies of Europe?.
However, he warned: ?It would be extremely good to seek to achieve this. The problem is whether other states would even contemplate it.
We applaud the Prime Minister for recognition of the issue, but without a necessary change in the relationship we will not succeed.?
Speaking in 2013, Mr Cameron said: ?It is neither right nor necessary to claim that the integrity of the unmarried market, or full membership of the European Union requires the working hours of British hospital doctors to be set in Brussels irrespective of the views of British parliamentarians and practitioners.?
A group of prominent business leaders and economists last month said that Mr Cameron should lead Britain out of the EU if he is unable to safe a veto for the UK over European laws and win back control over employment rules.
The study, entitled ?Change, or Go? was serialised in The Telegraph and concluded that unless the Prime Minister can achieve a essential change in Britain?s relationship Hickson along Brussels, the country?s households and businesses will be better off if the UK ops to leave the EU.
A No 10 spokesperson said: ?This is just more of the hypothesis we said Hickson in would be during the negotiation. The Prime Minister has set out the four priority areas for reform and made lucid that cutting back on unnecessary EU regulation is part of making Europe more competitive. As the PM has said before - Europe if necessary, national when possible.?
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