\n<\/p>\n
The business secretary, Peter Kyle, has opened the door to bosses to influence Labour\u2019s changes to workers\u2019 rights, amid boardroom fears over jobs and growth.<\/p>\n
In a signal the government could consider watering down the overhaul of employment rights, Kyle told business leaders at the CBI conference in London that he would hold a series of 26 consultations with companies after the bill became law.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we launch these consultations, please engage with it. Make your voice heard and engage with me and my department to make sure we get it right.\u201d<\/p>\n
With Labour under pressure to reboot the economy before the autumn budget on Wednesday, Kyle committed to ensure that businesses would not \u201close\u201d as a result of the changes, which include a ban on zero-hour contracts and day-one protections for workers against unfair dismissal.<\/p>\n
\u201cI will not allow it to become zero-sum, [you] give one to the other, the other loses \u2026 This has to be got right.\u201d<\/p>\n
Business leaders have stepped up lobbying against the workers\u2019 rights changes, saying that employers would cut jobs. The government\u2019s own analysis shows the changes will cost employers \u00a35bn to implement.<\/p>\n
Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative leader, told business leaders at the CBI that Labour\u2019s changes represented a bigger risk to companies and the economy than tax rises in Rachel Reeves\u2019s budget on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
She said: \u201cIt is a 330-page assault on flexible working, written in the TUC\u2019s headquarters, designed to drag Britain back to a world where unions are calling the shots.\u201d<\/p>\n
Promising that a Tory government would repeal the changes, she said Kyle\u2019s assurance to business leaders that he would listen to their concerns would mean little in practice. \u201cIf 26 consultations are what you need to fix things, then you have a really, really big problem,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
Rupert Soames, the president of the CBI, said of the employment rights bill: \u201cIt\u2019s going to be really, really damaging.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ministers are under pressure to implement the employment rights bill \u201cin full\u201d after Keir Starmer\u2019s September reshuffle fuelled unease among unions after the resignation of Angela Rayner, who had championed the plan.<\/p>\n
Union leaders and backbench Labour MPs have said reneging on the manifesto promise, which has large public backing, would betray voters and undermine workplace protections for millions.<\/p>\n
Kyle told businesses they could be reassured by his presence in government. As science and technology secretary, Kyle was accused of being too close to big tech after Guardian analysis showed he had met nearly 70% more times with companies than his Conservative predecessor.<\/p>\n
\u201cThats is a criticism that I happily accept and it\u2019s one that I expect to repeat in this job,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
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Sign up to Business Today<\/span><\/p>\n Get set for the working day \u2013 we’ll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morning<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.<\/span><\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Kyle said he accepted business confidence had been undermined by continual speculation before Reeves\u2019s budget on Wednesday. \u201cI accept that some businesses have said that they are frustrated with the speculation, and that is something whenever business say to me that they want things done differently,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cI will listen to them and I\u2019ll respect it, and I\u2019ll give them a voice in the future decisions that we take.\u201d<\/p>\n Currently going through parliament, Labour\u2019s employment rights bill has been amended three times by Tory and Liberal Democrat peers in the Lords to accommodate key business demands.<\/p>\n Labour has sought to reassure bosses by suggesting it could tweak the law once it is passed, using secondary legislation, but unions fear this could lead to it being watered down.<\/p>\n Speaking to journalists on the sidelines of the conference, Kyle said he would do \u201cwhat it takes\u201d to unblock parliamentary hold-ups to the bill because of the Lords amendments, before then consulting on its implementation.<\/p>\n \u201cThe 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\u2019m talking about zero-hours contracts and day one rights,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The business secretary, Peter Kyle, has opened the door to bosses to influence Labour\u2019s changes to workers\u2019 rights, amid boardroom fears over jobs and growth. In a signal the government could consider watering down the overhaul of employment rights, Kyle told business leaders at the CBI conference in London that he would hold a series<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":34996,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[2999,303,844,16724,134,702,2412,1438],"class_list":{"0":"post-34995","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics","8":"tag-bosses","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-economics","11":"tag-engage","12":"tag-labour","13":"tag-rights","14":"tag-secretary","15":"tag-workers"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34995","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=34995"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34995\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/34996"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=34995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=34995"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=34995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}