Business Secretary Peter Kyle has hinted at concessions over the Government’s workers’ rights package to ensure it makes it through Parliament and does not damage firms.
Mr Kyle said there would be extensive consultations about the measures in the Employment Rights Bill, insisting it was not a “zero sum” game where either workers or bosses lost out.
Confederation of British Industry (CBI) boss Rain Newton-Smith warned the legislation would take the country “backwards” in its current form.
The legislation is caught in a stand-off between peers and MPs over measures to ban “exploitative” zero-hours contracts and give workers protection against unfair dismissal from their first day in a job.
Asked if the Government would be prepared to accept amendments to end the stand-off, Mr Kyle said: “I’ll do what it takes to get it through, because I need to get on with the real business, which is implementing it.”
Seeking to reassure businesses who have concerns about the legislation, he told reporters at the CBI conference: “Our manifesto committed us to consult, to listen, and that’s what I’ll do.
“The primary legislation that is going through Parliament now commits me to consult in 26 different areas, the law is going to require me to.
“So it has been, yes, a frustration of mine that some of the area that will be filled in by the result of a consultation that meaningfully engages all sides and all voices, has been filled by people projecting onto what their worst fears are of it. But that is not the reality that I will be driving towards.”
Insisting “the voice of people who work in business will be heard” alongside the trade unions, he said “I’m not putting anyone over anyone else”.
The Government would “listen to both sides and all sides in this and to make sure it is not zero sum”.
“I will not pit employer against employee or employee against employer,” he said.
“In the world we’re living in now, the workplace is fundamentally different than it was 10 and 20 years ago. The law has to keep up, regulation has to keep up, and the ability of government to inspire and provide the foundations for growth within individual businesses and higher productivity is what we are set upon.
“And all of the conjecture that you’ve heard about what the Bill will and won’t deliver is based in areas for which the consultation on implementation has not even started.”
Ms Newton-Smith called on the Government to change course on the legislation, claiming businesses had not been listened to.
She said: “Lasting reform takes partnership – not a closed door.”
She told the PA news agency: “If the burden of regulation means that when businesses are trying to implement it, it’s unworkable, then it’s not a lasting solution.”
She suggested there could be a “landing zone” where a six or nine-month probation period could be put in place for workers to address concerns about the unfair dismissal changes.
“I think there’s a really workable solution to many of the areas where the Employment Rights Bill is trying to raise living standards. But how it’s drafted at the moment, it’s going to move us backwards and not create the jobs and opportunities we need to see for our young people, for everyone in the workforce.”
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch condemned the legislation in her CBI speech, saying it “destroys growth” and called for Rachel Reeves to use her Budget to kill it off.
Mrs Badenoch said of the legislation: “If 26 consultations are what you need to fix it then you have a really, really big problem.”
She added: “It is a pure political project. Killing it would be a signal to the world that Britain still understands what makes an economy grow.
“If the Chancellor had any sense, and any regard for business, she would use the Budget to say ‘we got this one wrong’ and drop it.
“It would be the cheapest pro-growth measure in the Red Book.”
She said the right to claim unfair dismissal from the first day of employment means a new hire could lodge a claim with an employment tribunal “before they’ve even worked out where the toilets are”.
The ban on exploitative zero hours contracts that gives workers a right to a contract which reflects their regular hours amounts to a “de facto ban” on seasonal and flexible work, such as over the Christmas period.
The Conservative leader told reporters that pushing ahead with the legislation could see bosses opt for artificial intelligence rather than workers.
She said: “There is no business out there that thinks 26 consultations is a serious response to a bad piece of legislation that should not be starting.
“This is not a growth measure. Businesses are closing down. We have unemployment going up every single month.
“They should just not be doing this at a time when people are worried about AI taking over jobs, people are just going to go to AI. Why would they bother with this?”
