Responding to the Prime Minister’s plan for change speech, Policy Chair of the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB), Tina McKenzie, said:
“The Prime Minister is right to point out that the route to achieving his pledge to raise real-terms disposable income and GDP per capita is through job creation and a thriving business environment.
“Therefore, proposals which will increase the costs and risks of employing people, including the Employment Rights Bill, should now be assessed against that target.
“The government’s own policy watchdog, the Regulatory Policy Committee, has already raised a red alert against some of the biggest parts of the Employment Rights Bill, slamming the impact assessments as unfit for purpose.
“We’ve raised significant concerns that the real impact, particularly on small employers, will act as a brake on job creation and have a smothering effect on affordable wage rises over the coming years. It will also completely counter efforts to tackle economic inactivity.
“In a mission-driven government, the Prime Minister must show that he can get rid of bad policy which threatens the government’s own number one growth objective.
“Jobs, wages and living standards will suffer if the government fails to bring forward sensible policy or to work through how and to what extent it is making employment harder and harder to provide.”
Ends
Notes to editors
- The Regulatory Policy Committee’s opinion on the impact assessments (IA) for the Employment Rights Bill can be found here.