Employment Rights Bill

Debate between Saqib Bhatti and Andrew Griffith

2nd reading
Monday 21st October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Saqib Bhatti (Meriden and Solihull East) (Con)]

Many small business in Meriden and Solihull East are rightly concerned about the Bill for a number of reasons. Since the election, I have spoken a number of times demanding that the Government be more ambitious for growth, for our entrepreneurs and for our small businesses. Indeed, it is the moral duty of every Government to unleash the full potential of our businesses and, where possible, to create an environment to embolden entrepreneurs and encourage economic growth.

Instead, the Bill will kill off any ambition and any focus on growth. If we want to focus on inclusive growth, we must nurture our start-ups, scale-ups and small businesses, and let them be nimble in how they operate, rather than shackling them. That is how economic magic will start to happen. The businesses to which I have spoken are worried about the insufficient consultation. The Government’s impact assessment, which we received late, shows that small businesses are likely to be hit hardest. The costs, according to the Government’s own analysis, will be in the low billions—up to £5 billion. For a Government who keep talking about the alleged black hole, those low billions seem rather reckless. It proves that this is nothing more than an ideological Bill that does not ensure growth.

[Andrew Griffith (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that, with just nine days until Halloween, the impact assessment we have seen today is an early horror show?

[Saqib Bhatti]

My hon. Friend makes a valid point. A lot of people are in a holding pattern for business decisions on investment and employment.

All the Bill will do is leave our businesses at the mercy of the trade unions and take us back to the 1970s. It will merely align us with the growth-gobbling guidelines set by bureaucrats in Brussels and hold our businesses back. It is not just me who thinks this; I am going by the Government’s impact assessment. The CBI claims that employers expect Britain to become the worst place to invest and do business over the next five years—a damning indictment of the Government.