George Freeman
Main Page: George Freeman (Conservative - Mid Norfolk)Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
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Mr Prisk
Mr Speaker, I would test your patience if I were to list the full 10 elements of employment law as the hon. Gentleman requests, but he is right to say that that deal was struck under the current law. We do not live in a static world, however, and we need to ensure that we have examined all the changes in the workplace, whether in a large car plant or a small firm.
George Freeman (Mid Norfolk) (Con)
Does the Minister agree that, when the Government have decided how to respond to the report, it will be important to listen more to the small businessmen and women around the country than to those on the Labour Front Bench—I do not think that any of them have started a business—and to remember that micro-businesses are the key to the growth that we all want to see? Does he acknowledge that too many of our small companies are struggling with big-company legislation, and that well intentioned employment legislation often has the opposite effect, in that it puts employers off taking the risk of employing people and creates a licence for spurious claims at employment appeals tribunals?
Mr Prisk
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We saw an unreformed employment tribunal system that—as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, who used to be an employment Minister, knows all too well—had failed under the last Government. This Government changed it, and that is a record we can be proud of.