9 hours ago
Baroness Cash warns Employment Bill could 'bring the country to its knees'
Angela Rayner is on record as saying she wants to repeal all the union laws since the seventies, to take us back to the seventies'
On the latest Planet Normal podcast, which you can listen to using the audio player below, columnists Liam Halligan and Allison Pearson discuss Labour's Employment Rights Bill, currently being discussed in the House of Lords. They are joined by Conservative peer Baroness Cash, who has raised concerns it could have severe consequences for small and medium-sized businesses.
A key issue is the proposed removal of the threshold for strike ballots. 'You could have two people voting for a strike… we could be bringing businesses and the country to its knees with tiny minorities of people,' she said.
Baroness Cash also criticised the lack of exemptions for small firms. '60% of our workforce is employed by micro and small businesses… You could have a handful of people bringing the whole thing to a standstill.'
On the issue of day one rights for unfair dismissal, she said: 'At the moment… legally you can't bring a claim for unfair dismissal before two years… the idea that from day one, you walk into a workplace and you have day one rights for unfair dismissal… is just an extraordinary retro thing to do.'
