{"id":76497,"date":"2025-05-05T13:00:15","date_gmt":"2025-05-05T13:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/76497\/"},"modified":"2025-05-05T13:00:15","modified_gmt":"2025-05-05T13:00:15","slug":"gails-bakery-boss-fears-employment-rights-bill-may-hit-jobs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/76497\/","title":{"rendered":"Gail’s Bakery boss fears Employment Rights Bill may hit jobs"},"content":{"rendered":"

By CALUM MUIRHEAD<\/a> <\/a> <\/p>\n

Updated: 03:42 EDT, 5 May 2025 <\/p>\n

Jobs will be put at risk by Labour’s plans to impose more rules on companies when they hire staff, a leading businessman has warned.<\/p>\n

Luke Johnson, chairman of the Gail’s Bakery chain, said the economy was in a ‘precarious’ state and putting additional regulations on firms, especially smaller ones, would deter them from hiring as costs rise.<\/p>\n

‘Government talk a good game about growth. But the reality of what they are doing is the opposite. Unquestionably, this Employment Rights Bill will destroy jobs,’ Mr Johnson said.<\/p>\n

He called on ministers to rip up the rules, which are making their way through Parliament.<\/p>\n

Speaking to James Reed on the employment agency boss’s All About Business podcast<\/a>, Mr Johnson added: ‘I would completely scrap the Employment Rights Bill… given the precarious conditions of the UK economy is not what job creators need.’<\/p>\n

The comments come as businesses face a barrage of extra costs after measures unveiled by Chancellor Rachel Reeves came into force last month.<\/p>\n

\"In <\/p>\n

In safe hands?: Gail’s chairman Luke Johnson said the economy was in a ‘precarious’ state<\/p>\n

These included a 6.7 per cent rise in the National Living wage to \u00a312.21 per hour alongside an increase in National Insurance Contributions from employers.<\/p>\n

Mr Johnson, who was previously the boss of Pizza Express and currently sits on the boards of firms such as Revolution Bars owner The Revel Collective, said ever-increasing costs risked forcing entrepreneurs out of the UK.<\/p>\n

‘Fewer people will want to start a business,’ he also told the podcast. ‘People will outsource or automate jobs, or they just won’t bother.<\/p>\n

‘If you burden those risk-takers… and you tax them too heavily… eventually the talent will go.’<\/p>\n

The Bill includes rights to guaranteed hours and flexible working. The Government has estimated the plans to expand workers’ rights will cost firms an extra \u00a35billion a year.<\/p>\n

Mr Johnson last year told MPs Labour’s proposals risked ‘crushing’ the private sector and that he feared some of his businesses would not survive.<\/p>\n

There are already signs that firms are beginning to buckle under the pressure of rising tax bills, which will be made worse by the disruption caused by Donald Trump’s tariffs.<\/p>\n

Restructuring experts Begbies Traynor last month reported that the number of companies in ‘critical’ financial distress rose by 13 pc in the first three months of the year.<\/p>\n

It followed figures from the Government’s Insolvency Service that showed the amount of firms going bust in March rose by 9 per cent compared with the same month in 2024.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Listen to\u00a0Luke Johnson’s podcast<\/a><\/p>\n

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\n Gail’s Bakery boss fears Employment Rights Bill may hit jobs<\/p>\n