The right to switch off was part of the government’s Make Work Pay plan, which has the Employment Rights Bill as its centrepiece, although it was not actually part of the draft legislation. Apparently it was going to be intoroduced via statutory instrument, a separate minor piece of statute, which shows how contentious it was.

Now it is understood that the right to switch off rule will not be introduced, after pressure from the chancellor Rachel Reeves and business secretary Johnathan Reynolds to drop the plan as businesses baulked at the proposal.