Employees could get greater powers to work their contracted hours over fewer days.

Full-time workers’ rights to ask for a four-day working week could be strengthened under government plans to increase flexible working.

Employees would still have to work their full hours to receive their full pay but could request to compress their contracted hours into a shorter working week, as first reported by the Daily Telegraph.

Since April, workers have already had the right to ask for flexible working as soon as they start a job but firms do not have to agree.

The government says it will not impose changes on staff or businesses, but the Conservatives say businesses are “petrified” about the plans.

Education Minister Baroness Jacqui Smith told LBC that “flexible working is actually good for productivity”.