Next’s boss has warned that Labour’s workers’ rights bill could cause ‘havoc’ – as evidence mounts that it is hurting business.
Lord Wolfson said the extra red tape involved could pose ‘a huge risk to employment’ by making it harder to offer flexible hours to some staff.
The comments from the High Street retailer’s chief executive came as a report by the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) suggested a further slowdown in the private sector this spring – partly thanks to worries about the new regulations.
Rachel Reeves’s £25billion raid on employer National Insurance contributions (NIC) is also taking its toll, the CBI warned, as it said firms expect activity to fall over the next three months.
On Labour’s plan to introduce a raft of new workers’ rights – which will include a ban on so-called zero-hours contracts – Wolfson said: ‘If they get the details wrong, it could be a huge burden on employees and work against employees.’
He said that while the legislation could be ‘positive’, reforms entitling workers to contracts with a minimum number of weekly hours could go awry if the level is set too high, making it more difficult to employ students during term time, for example.
Jobs threat: Next boss Lord Wolfson (pictured) said the extra red tape involved could pose ‘a huge risk to employment’ by making it harder to offer flexible hours to some staff
Wolfson said that if the level is set at four hours ‘it won’t make a load of difference. If it is set at 12 hours, it will cause havoc’.
The Next boss, who made the comments as the company published full-year results, also took aim at the NIC hike, warning of the impact that it will have on ordinary consumers through higher prices and fewer jobs.
The employer rights’ bill also came under fire from peers yesterday. Entrepreneur and start-up investor Lord Londesborough said it represents ‘another vampire squid sucking the life out of our economy’ and would ‘damage jobs, productivity and wages across both the public and private sectors’.
Lord Hunt, a former Conservative employment secretary, said: ‘This bill is not only anti-business, in my view it is anti-worker.
‘If it passes in anything like its current form, it could be more appropriate to call it an unemployment bill.’
It came a day after the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) acknowledged the negative impact that the workers’ rights rules could have.
And CBI chairman Rupert Soames said this week that higher taxes and new rights for workers had left bosses ‘pretty p****d off’.
Soames said: ‘People bought into the idea that Labour would be the most pro-business government ever and clearly they aren’t.’
The economy has stagnated since Labour came to power in July and recent surveys suggest it has also been a dismal start to 2025.
A report from the CBI today shows private sector activity continued to fall in the three months to March – and will do so again in the second quarter of the year.
Alpesh Paleja, the CBI’s deputy chief economist, said firms ‘continue to tell us that the impact of higher employer NICs, the upcoming rise in the National Living Wage and concern over the Employment Rights Bill are weighing on activity and sentiment’.
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