Government proposals to reduce the burden of red tape faced by small businesses have been met with scorn by The Forum of Private Businesses (FPB) and its members.
The Employment Simplification Bill, which is due before Parliament next week, contains three main measures: a new penalty regime for businesses which fail to pay the minimum wage, the repeal of regulations on employment dispute resolution dating from 2004, and the implementation of court judgements into UK law.
However, Phil McCabe, a spokesman for the FPB, has condemned the bill for not including many of the lobby group’s proposals and mocked the ‘simplification’ element of its title as ‘a bit of a stretch’.
“A wide-ranging review of the burdens of employment law took place last year,” said McCabe “The FPB submitted some detailed data on health and safety, parental leave and sick pay concerns, none of which seems to have made it into this Bill.
“Dispute resolution and the minimum wage penalties each come from other reviews, which leaves us wondering where Darling’s review actually got us.”
The FPB has also condemned the Regulatory Enforcement and Sanctions (RES) Bill, which had its second reading in the House of Lords this week,
claiming it would merely hand regulators the power to impose penalties without any proof of wrongdoing.
The Bill, aimed at bringing consistency to local authority enforcement, was introduced by Lord Jones of Birmingham, a former director general of the Confederation of British Industry, who said it would lead to ‘reduced regulatory burdens for compliant businesses’.
An anonymous FPB member called the Bill ‘sheer nonsense’, adding: “Wasting our money to add more legislation seems to be the highest aspiration of our present leaders.”
© Crimson Business Ltd. 2007
