Employment Law (Businesses)

Baroness Primarolo Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Nigel Adams (Selby and Ainsty) (Con)]

I concur entirely with what has been said. Like many others now in the Chamber, I ran a small business for a number of years, but employment legislation is not the only thing holding back small businesses. In North Yorkshire, as my hon. Friend will be aware, the county council has stopped traders placing advertising boards outside their premises. We have just been through—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. This is an Adjournment debate about employment law, so if the hon. Gentleman intervenes again perhaps he will keep to the point.

[Julian Smith]

I agree with my hon. Friend. That is all part of the same burden.

The second piece of legislation that we are going to acquire from Labour is the measure on additional paternity leave. The time spent learning about and then administering the process of additional paternity leave will have a huge impact. From early next year, rather than focusing on job creation, business will be administering how best to let dads go off. Business was not even consulted properly. In a recent written answer, the Government admitted that only 111 companies—111 throughout Britain—had been involved in the consultation on that policy. Why did Labour create those laws with such little consideration for the risk-takers whom they affect?

With all that legislation rolling over from the previous Government, we surely need a pause—a break—in employment law. The coalition is doing many positive things to create the conditions for growth, such as scrapping Labour’s jobs tax, introducing the national insurance holiday for businesses in Yorkshire and outside the south-east, and cutting corporation tax, but at a time when we need to let business focus on growth, the coalition is pushing forward with more legislation on employment law.

First, there is the removal of the default retirement age, with no offsetting measures to assist companies in managing out their staff.