- Thursday 20 June 2013
- My Account
- Logout
- Register
- Login
- News
-
Voices
-
Find by writer
- Yasmin Alibhai-Brown
- Rebecca Armstrong
- Memphis Barker
- Terence Blacker
- Chris Blackhurst
- David Blanchflower
- Archie Bland
- Ian Burrell
- Andrew Buncombe
- Ben Chu
- Patrick Cockburn
- Laura Davis
- Mary Dejevsky
- Grace Dent
- Robert Fisk
- Andrew Grice
- Stefano Hatfield
- Philip Hensher
- Ian Herbert
- Howard Jacobson
- Ellen E Jones
- Alice Jones
- Owen Jones
- Simon Kelner
- Dominic Lawson
- Donald Macintyre
- Lisa Markwell
- Comment
- Campaigns
- Debate
- Editorials
- Letters
- IV Drip
- Archive
- Our Voices
- Commentators
- Columnists
- Democracy 2015
- IV Drip Archive
-
Find by writer
- Sport
- Tech
- Life
- Property
- Arts & Ents
- Travel
- Money
- IndyBest
- Blogs
- Student
- Offers
Thursday 24 May 2012
Leading article: We need to look beyond the fuss about Beecroft
Not all the proposals are undesirable. There is red tape and also necessary regulation
For a report that hardly warrants the name – it runs to a bare 16 pages – the document produced by the venture capitalist Adrian Beecroft has caused a rare old kerfuffle. Nor is it even the whole of the report. The offending section argues that employers should have the right to sack someone just because, say, they do not like his, or her, face.
Mr Beecroft had been asked to review employment law, with a view to cutting red tape. His proposal for a no-fault form of dismissal was a response to employers' complaints that current labour legislation makes it too expensive, in time and money, to dispense with workers who are not pulling their weight, while not doing anything so bad as to justify summary dismissal.
That so many voices have been raised against such a change is hardly surprising. The objections not only reflect fears that decades of progressive, labour-protection legislation could be reversed, they are also born of a sense of natural justice. The notion that an employer could hire and fire at will, leaving someone with no job and no redress is profoundly unsettling for any employee – doubly so at a time when steady work is, in many places, so hard to find.
But the hue and cry about the Beecroft report reflects something else as well: a shrewd calculation of political advantage. One big winner is Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats, who claimed bragging rights even before the report was published. All credit was due to them, they said, for stopping the dismissal proposals in their tracks. Vulnerable, since entering the Coalition, to charges of selling their liberal soul, the Liberal Democrats could suddenly present themselves as defending the barricades on behalf of the workers. The Business Secretary, Vince Cable, declared the proposals "the wrong approach" and "nonsense".
When Mr Beecroft himself came out fighting, attacking Mr Clegg for "threatening to go nuclear and dissolve the whole thing if he doesn't get his way" and Mr Cable for being a "socialist" and "one of the left", the Liberal Democrats were like cats with the cream. They will surely take the kudos with them into their next election manifesto – and Messrs Clegg and Cable can add lines of honour to their CVs. Forcing the Government to admit at the outset that no-fault dismissal was essentially going nowhere was indeed a giant feather in their cap.
No wonder that the Labour leader, Ed Miliband, sought a part of the action at Prime Minister's Questions yesterday. He could hardly allow his party, as the constituency of organised labour, to stand aside while the Liberal Democrats basked alone in the glory. So it was that Mr Miliband denounced the no-fault dismissal proposals as "bonkers" and evidence that the "nasty party" was back. Not for the first time in recent weeks, Mr Cameron was defensive.
As well he might have been. For two questions arise from the Beecroft furore that go beyond all the party political point-scoring. The first is how a Conservative Party donor and venture capitalist, however successful, comes so close to making government policy. Thank goodness, it might be said, Mr Cameron fell short of an overall majority. The second is how many of Mr Beecroft's proposals may yet proceed under cover of the dismissal row.
Not all are undesirable: they include simplified procedures for employers trying to establish whether migrants may legally work, a provision enabling individuals to combine small pension pots from different jobs, and no charges for CRB checks. There can be little doubt that business whose growth will provide most of the new jobs the country so badly needs would benefit from less of this sort of red tape, as would their employees. But there is red tape, and there is necessary regulation. The Beecroft proposals, positive and negative, need a wider airing than, in the present climate, they are likely to get.
How will you make today delicious?
Tell us how you plan to make today delicious and you could win a £50 M&S gift card.
Win a Nook® Simple Touch eReader
Find out how Nook® is supporting the Evening Standard's Get Reading campaign - and your chance to win one.
Free reading festival for families
Follow The Standard's campaign to get London's children reading - and experience this unique event at Trafalgar Square on 13 July.
Enter the latest Independent competitions
Win anything from gadgets to five-star holidays on our competitions and offers page.
Business videos from commercial thought leaders
Watch the best in the business world give their insights into the world of business.
Related Articles
Get the best in opinion from Independent Voices, straight to your inbox every Thursday lunchtime.
Subscribe
iJobs General
FX Options Front Office Java / C# Developer
£500 - £600 per day: Orgtel: FX Options Front Office Java / C# Developer - Ba...
Project Manager - Front Office - Regulatory IT
£600 - £700 per day: Orgtel: Project Manager - Front Office - Regulatory IT C...
Lighting Design Engineer
£33000 - £35000 Per Annum: The Green Recruitment Company: The Green Recruitmen...
Are you an Primary NQT looking for your first role in Essex?
£21000 - £22000 per annum: Randstad Education Chelmsford: NQTs required now fo...
Day In a Page
Babies behind bars
Sonic youth: The high-pitched sound alarm
The art of living in small spaces
'Teaching bright children isn't rocket science'
Can technology lure us back to the high street?


