Last week’s debate in Parliament was prompted by Vince Cable’s decision to publish in full the much-leaked report by Adrian Beecroft, which dates back to October last year. There has been a steady stream of proposals emerging from various Government departments in the last few months which in large measure reflect the ideas in the report. A short paper published in conjunction with the press release suggests that 17 of his proposals are being carried forward, while relatively few have been ruled out. But the full picture is rather more complicated than that.
It is has been widely known for some time that one of the key ideas in the report was the introduction of a compensated no-fault dismissal scheme where employers could in effect buy out an employee’s unfair dismissal rights in return for a fixed payment. What is now apparent is that the original plan was to combine this with a much wider range of exemptions for small businesses, including a complete exemption from unfair dismissal. The Government has ruled out both ideas, but instead has issued a call for evidence on a compromise proposal, which would involve introducing a no-fault dismissal scheme specifically for small businesses. More recently it has supplemented this by some international case studies from Germany, Spain and Australia.
The House of Commons debate, and subsequent coverage in the media, has demonstrated that views on this issue are strongly divided. For his part, Vince Cable has made it pretty clear that he is against no-fault dismissal. It remains to be seen whether the Government has the political appetite to introduce what would be the most significant re-balancing of employment protection in recent years, even though it would now apply only to a relatively limited section of the workforce. The call for evidence closes next week.
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