Election 2015: Sports Direct share price up 4 per cent after zero-hours relief on Conservative win

Labour had planned to scrap zero hours contracts

Sports Direct’s share price jumped as much as five percent this morning (PA)

Sports Direct’s share price jumped as much as five percent this morning after investors in the beleaguered high street chain expressed relief that Ed Miliband would not be taking up residence at number 10.

The Labour leader had promised to increase the minimum wage and scrap zero hours contracts. Sports Direct is responsible for a fifth of all zero hours contracts in the UK. Some 15,000 Sports Direct employees are on the contracts, that do not guarantee a set number of working hours a week.

The share price rally is also related to the sale of Sports Direct’s West End offices for £44 million this week.

The Cavendish Street offices, initially priced at £38 million, are home to other businesses in which Sports Direct has a stake, including a ‘flash sales’ outfit called MySale.

A recent probe by the Channel 4 program Dispatches revealed workers on zero-hours contracts are subject to a 'six strikes and you're out disciplinary system'. Steve Turner, assistant general secretary of the trade union Unite, said after the programme that the way Sports Direct operates is like a "throw-back to the Victorian era".

"Workers on zero hours contracts at Sports Direct’s Shirebrook site are being shamefully exploited and living in daily fear of losing their job.

"Mike Ashley and Sport Direct’s shameful business model which is built on low pay and exploitative zero hours contracts, where workers are treated with contempt, has no place on the high streets of 21st century Britain," Turner said.