Labour minister Peter Kyle points new pledge on staff’ rights forward of Budget
The Employment Rights Bill has been one of the most hotly debated policies announced by Labour, and the task of implementing it has been handed to new Business Secretary Peter Kyle
Business secretary Peter Kyle has vowed to “do what it takes” to implement a controversial shake-up of workers’ rights.
The Employment Rights Bill is an ambitious package of new measures, including long-awaited reforms to parental and bereavement leave, sick pay, zero hours contracts and unfair dismissal rules.
Unions have largely welcomed it, and urged the government to stand firm in the face of opposition. The Tories claim it will pile billions of pounds of extra costs onto businesses and will deter hiring, while the Bill has faced a challenge in the Commons and the Lords as part of its passage through parliament.
But Mr Kyle insisted the Bill would deliver on Labour’s manifesto promise that it was about “pro-business and pro the people who work in business.”
He told business lobby group the CBI’s annual conference in London: “I will do what it takes to get it through because I need to get on with the real job which is implementing it.”
Mr Kyle insisted that nothing was set in stone and urged everyone to have their say in its consultation. He went on: “It has been a frustration of mine that some of the area that will be filled in by consultation, that meaningfully engages all sides and all voices, has been filled by people projecting onto what their worst fears are of it are.
“That is not the reality I will be driving forwards. The voice of business – the voice of people who work in business – will be heard when we get down into the weeds of implementing those key parts of the Employment Rights Bill and yes, I am talking about zero hours contracts and day one rights.”
At the CBI’s annual conference, its chief executive Rain Newton-Smith said eight in 10 firms say the Employment Rights Bill, in its current form ,will make it harder to hire.
She said: “Change course on the Employment Rights Bill. Lasting reform takes partnership – not a closed door. But with this Bill, though government said it wanted to listen, there has been no meaningful change.
“It’s disappointing, and it’s damaging. We want reform that works – and endures. For that, government must change course – ask business and unions to forge consensus through compromise. It’s a model that delivered before – and it can deliver again, for working people and for growth.”
It came as Mr Kyle claimed the government would “shock our economy into growth” if needed to achieve growth. He told CBI delegates: “We inherited a situation when we came into office where we were stuck in this vice-like grip of high taxes and low growth. We are not going to break out of this cycle unless we do some pretty profoundly different things.
“I would frame this as we inherited a growth emergency and we are still in it and we will be in it for as long as we are unable to get our way out of this situation without relying on increased economic productivity as opposed to just the normal tax rises or government cuts.”
Citing promised planning reforms, he went on: “In an emergency environment situation you have licence to do things you don’t do at other times and I am looking really at what those measures are. What are the things we can do to shock our economy into growth, to inspire our economy into growth.”
Given nervousness about financial markets’ to this week’s Budget, he said: “I can promise you there will be no repeat of Liz Truss’s disastrous experiment with the British economy which wreaked havoc on every working people in the country.”
