Labour‘s plans to expand workers’ rights amount to an ‘assault’ on flexible working that will hammer growth, Kemi Badenoch warned today.
In a punchy speech to business leaders the Conservative Party leader warned that the flagship law championed by former deputy PM Angela Rayner would take Britain ‘back to a world where unions call the shots and employers carry the blame’.
Initial measures linked to the Bill, such as day one paternity leave and changes to statutory sick leave, are due to come into force in April next year.
Further measures, such as banning unfair zero hours contracts, are expected to be introduced in 2027.
However, the Bill has faced criticism from employers over increases in business costs and complexity.
Mrs Badenoch today told the Confederation of British Industries (CBI) conference it was’ a 330-page assault on flexible working … written in the TUC’s headquarters’.
‘For 30 years, flexible labour markets have been one of Britain’s real strengths,’ she said.
They allowed us to create millions of jobs after the financial crisis, they helped us keep unemployment much lower than competitor countries, they are one of the reasons we became the largest (net) exporter of financial services in the world right up till 2024.
This Bill rips that up.’
Days before a Budget expected to hit workers and firms with new taxes Mrs Badenoch also said Labour would dress up the tax rises as ‘a necessity’, when they were anything but.
In a punchy speech to business leaders the Conservative Party leader warned that the flagship law championed by former deputy PM Angela Rayner would take Britain ‘back to a world where unions call the shots and employers carry the blame’.
Initial measures linked to the Bill, such as day one paternity leave and changes to statutory sick leave, are due to come into force in April next year.
Mrs Badenoch today told the Confederation of British Industries (CBI) conference it was’ a 330-page assault on flexible working … written in the TUC’s headquarters’.
Ms Reeves has been warned not to inflict ‘death by a thousand taxes’ on British business in Wednesday’s Budget.
The head of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) Rain Newton-Smith said the Government must ‘change course’ and avoid heaping more costs on firms.
The Chancellor will hike taxes to fill a black hole in the public finances as she faces the prospect of a downgrade in the Budget watchdog’s economic growth forecast for every year of this Parliament.
At the CBI’s conference in Westminster, Ms Newton-Smith urged Ms Reeves to stand up to Labour’s backbenchers to take tough decisions on issues such as cutting welfare spending.
She said Ms Reeves had to prove she was committed to economic growth and make the hard choices to deliver it.
‘Prove it – against opposition, against short-term politics, be it on welfare, be it pension increases, show the markets you mean business,’ she said
‘Short-term politics leads to a long-term decline, and this country cannot afford another decade of stagnation.
‘That means making hard choices for growth now before they get harder, having the courage to take two tough decisions rather than 20 easier ones.
‘Raising the headroom to make promises stick, it means one or two broad tax rises, rather than death by a thousands taxes.’
The scale of the task facing the Chancellor was underlined by a Sky News report that the Office for Budget Responsibility has downgraded its forecast for 2026 and every other year before the next election due in 2029.
Ms Reeves has already acknowledged publicly that growth forecasts will be hit due to the OBR’s revision of its assumptions about productivity.
The downgrade, and the subsequent reduction in tax revenues, will force Ms Reeves to hike taxes to balance the books and build a bigger buffer against future shocks than the historically-low level of headroom she has previously given herself.