LABOUR called on the government today to focus on post-Brexit industry and household incomes in response to new figures showing the rate of productivity suffering its worst fall in a year.

Shadow business secretary Rebecca Long-Bailey said this should be their priority instead of “hosting shambolic Cabinet squabbles in the countryside.”

She spoke out after the Office of National Statistics figures showed that productivity fell 0.4 per cent in the three months to the end of March and is the first contraction for a year.

The ONS said the fall was due to strength in employment growth combined with weaker growth in output.

Ministers met at Chequers — Theresa May’s 16th-century Buckinghamshire residence — to thrash out a white paper for Brexit in a 12-hour marathon that was expected to go on until 10pm last night.

Their phones were confiscated when they had arrived in the morning and were told that they would have their ministerial cars taken away if they quit over the proposed Brexit blueprint, meaning they would have to walk to the end of the mile-long drive and then get a taxi 40 miles back to London.

A No 10 source claimed that Ms May had already drawn up an “emergency reshuffle plan” in case she is hit with mass resignations by Eurosceptics.

For months Ms May has put off key decisions about her Brexit policy due to deep divisions in the Cabinet over how close to stick to European Union rules and structures.

She previously put forward two options for customs rules which were both rejected.

A third option, known as a Facilitated Customs Arrangement, would let Britain set its own tariffs on goods in exchange for closely following EU standards.

Brexiteer ex-minister David Jones described the deal as looking “not very good at all.”

Ms Long-Bailey said: “Productivity figures again confirm that the government’s lacklustre industrial strategy and the way that they have casually ignored the voices of unions and business during Brexit negotiations is severely threatening Britain’s economic future.

“Improving productivity is essential in order to increase wages and living standards, so rather than hosting shambolic Cabinet squabbles in the countryside, the government should be prioritising industry and household incomes.”