As you will see below, I used my Telegraph column today to write about how the Conservative Party has an opportunity to regain the business vote. In particular, it needs to target the small business vote. This cause will not be helped by today's announcement on maternity/paternity pay.
Imagine you are a small business, employing a dozen people. Imagine that you employ a husband and wife, who suddenly inform you that in three months time that they will be having a child. Your joy for them is unalloyed, but at the back of your mind you are dismayed. You are embarrassed at your train of thought and try to hide your dismay.
Why might you be dismayed? Because these two people have been trained to do a job and it would be impossible to replace them for a temporary period of six months if they both decide to take maternity/paternity leave.
So whatever the family benefits of this policy announcement may be (and they are many) I hope that safeguards for small businesses have been properly thought through.
33 comments:
Oh for heaven's sake! Sometimes I despair. I really like what Cameron is doing to the party but he has to think of the consequences.
How the hell will small business cope with the huge increases in costs associated with these family friendly policies?
From the persepctive of a small business, I would change the law so that you have about two weeks fully paid maternity leave, followed by up to six weeks unpaid leave, then you either return, or you have to resign!
As for Paternity leave - a week fully paid, backed up with the option of taking some unpaid leave equivalent to the mother - but no more. Six weeks tops!
We cannot have it all and we must stop fooling ourselves that we can.
God, anyway, having kids is a natural part of life and has been for millions of years. We should stop being so tree-huggy about it all.
Just because we are in the noughties, parenting hasn't suddenly become so hard that we need the state to hold our hands and send us for life-coaching lessons.
If you want a baby, fine, go have one, but stop especting everyone else to pay for it!
Unless it emerges that the baby has an illness, then have the baby, have some time off to enjoy the thrill of it all and get yourselves organised, then get back to work.
Stop penalising employers and wider society for your life choices.
And yes - I have two children. I took one day off work when my daughter was born and two days off for my son (he has a heart defect which emerged the day after he was born - so I felt that was justified).
Neither are in therapy as a reuslt of my not spending a month going all new age over them!
If we had a more functional society where we actually spoke to our neighbours, and where parents lived nearby, we wouldn;t have to look to the state so much because we would have our own 'support network', called 'friends and family'!
This is therefore a thouroughly bad suggestion and I hope it dies a death.
Osbourne will have to explain this one. It could cripple some small businesses - or make them very reluctant to employ young fertile women or men. But maybe that will redress the balance and encourage more companies to employ those over 50 instead of throwing them on the scrapheap!!
If people can't provide for children they shouldn't have them. I've said before about small-c conservative sustainability, linked to environmentalism. Although I have very advanced, progressive views on social matters I don't lose sight of the need for personal responsibility. We can't just have people knocking out babies.
This is yet another stupid idea but why should we be surprised with Cameron at the helm.
Black Fingernail: You cannot 'not employ' someone because they might start a family. The GOvernment regard this as 'discrimination' and employers get fined for such evil and calous behaviour!
The state should stop interfering and telling employers who they should employ, and let employers make the best decision on what is in the interests of the compnay. A business is a private enterprise, and not an arm of the state which the government should use to engage in social engineering.
I employ 8 people, 6 of whom could get pregnant (presumably). If one fell pregnant we would cope, but two or three at the same time would be horrendous.
But, I would have to cope because the government sees me as part of its social policy, not as someone trying to balance books so that I don;t have to make everyone redundant!
At the end of the day - there is no such thing as a free lunch. Somewhere, somneone has to pay for Government social policy.
And it's usually the business community!
These policies are often presented as socially just and progressive. They are not. The SMBs are in effect subsidising lifestyle choices by parents. The co-workers of those on pat/mat leave often have to carry the workload because the company cannot always hire people to cover the gap. And of course even temp workers get increasing amounts of rights. One person's benefit is another's burden. In an ideal world we would all inherit £40 million and have contacts at the Palace that would ease us into nice cushy jobs. But of course in reality we have to work hard for our corn. These bollocky policies don't help.
The only families that will be able to go without both incomes will be those most well off and with private cover. In fact the very people that won't need this extra help.
This makes no difference. No sensible small business owner employs a single or recently married young lady. I've made the same choice when I've recruited.
Illegal? Yes.
Spoken? No.
Happens? All the time.
Sensible? You bet.
This debate is totally skewed. The chances of the scenario happening which Iain has protrayed is very remote. The Conservative policy is a good idea. One of the reasons where there is so much social breakdown is because parents are unable to stay at home with their children for a long enough period after they are born. This leads to very young children being farmed off to childminders and daycare nurseries when they are to young and for too long periods of time. The consequences are that young children do not receive the stimulation they need at a very young age and consequently they are less intellegent than they would have been if they had stayed at home longer. Furthermore the children who are farmed of to daycare centres are not as close to their parents! Some businesses may suffer but the costs saved in the longer run through reduced social breakdown will be far greater.
I fully support the comments made here, and am very sorry to see Cameron promulgating this tosh.
It seems that both Business and Education are being turned in sub-divisions of Social Services, to the detriment of all three.
Annon: I employ several of them, and I am glad I do because they are great staff, and I would be willing to take the risk about them getting pregnant because of the quality of their work.
Not every recently married woman is broody and despertae to breed! some do want careers.
But I think you are right that it is both stupid and unfair for the government to 'dictate' a company's employment policy. The point is that Government sees us as part of itself, an extension of the state, and therefore fre to tell us how we can behave to meet their own social agenda.
I say, sod off and leave me alone.
The other point is that (hyperthetically) if all the women capable of having babies did so, I'd go bust and they would all get laid off anyway! The Government doesn't undertsand this because they don't understand business!
As I said, there is no such thing as a free lunch!
I well remember the 'disabled ramp' episode.
Where is the employer (unpaid tax collector)who exists who dislikes diabled people so much, he/she wouldn't put a ramp in where a ramp is thought neccessary by Government legislation?
Answer, nowhere.
So why was there such a fuss?
Because business people of all descriptions will put ramps all over ths Country, on the condidtion that Government pays for them! Outside buidings, on planes, boats, space ships, in fact anywhere in the world.
Just pay for them.
Does a little bit of legislation like this make a seemingly, meek and mild business person appear to be like a mass murderer, escaped?
YES! YES! YES! YES! YES!
The samaritans was never invented for ordinary people in trouble, it was invented for business folk who forgot to build into their business strategy, a ramp.
Penguins, this year, ramps, last year. What is it to be this year?!!
You can't ask a potential employee if they are an asylum seeker, their age, their sex (man or woman), their age, if they will turn up, if they are on the run, if they have a violent personality disorder (the axe normally gives a hint here),a serious and virulent contagious disease,a lifer (killing a former employer).
Failure to employ the above means:
Court, found guilty, sentenced, released at a later date.
Criminal record, business collapse and ruination.Homeless.
Gary
I don't know why you just pick on this legislation - the whole raft of EU legislation is loaded towards the larger national or multi-national concern, who have teams of people or even whole departments, to deal with the implications of things like Health and Safety legislation or the Working Time Directive.
I am not sure how John Hutton can stand there and say we need more millionaire entrepreneurs, while allowing yet more legislative burdens in through the back door.
Adrian Yalland, I've noticed on quite a few occasions that you have sensible views. Why don't you set up a proper blog? I can't find a link from your profile.
I'm on the drink tonight so I'll doubtless be getting more and more right-wing as the cider goes down :)
David Cameron should get his nose out of things that do not concern him - i.e., other people's families. This fellow proves every day that he is Blair MarkII and I absolutely dislike him.
I am all in favour of paternity leave, but I cannot see why it should only be available so early in the child’s life.
Especially if the child is still breast-feeding, what, with the best will in the world, is the father actually doing all day?
Whereas a teenager, in particular, might very well benefit enormously if his or her father were in a position to say, “That’s it, I’m taking that bit of paternity leave I’ve been owed all these years, and since I’m either back at work the following Monday morning or I lose my job, then this will be sorted out by that Sunday night at the latest, oh yes it will be!”
So let him be able to take it at any point up until the child is 18 or leaves school, I say.
Of course Cameron and Osborne haven't thought this one through. They're just the same as Blair: it's all about the image it portrays and nothing to do with forming an efficient government. This idea was invented by spin doctors for spin doctors and to hell with the rest of us.
If they're not careful, Cameron'll end up like Blair: in power but with no mandate to change anything because every possible change has been triangulated out of existence.
I'm seriously considering handing back my membership card. Unless people really are as stupid as Cameron and Osborne imagine them to be, I can't see my vote being replaced by any swing voters.
In a job dependent on the employee building up interpersonal relations with clients, and other staff in the workplace, as so many jobs stress is of the first importance, all these maternity provisions are a disaster.
Weeks to train the replacement and then they are already beginning to wind down, to alter work patterns and commitments, because there are only weeks before leaving again. Maternity leave works for production line jobs and low level mechanical jobs, but women are very much employed in fields where interpersonal skills are central - that's what they are particularly good at.
Perhaps, as pregnancy is now planned long in advance in the interests of the health of the child, employers could be given warning notice, say nine months, and employees who take long maternity leave must stay away for two years, funded by all of us with benefits. The argument is we all benefit from the production of a succeeding generation. Then a replacement would be worth their training and decently rewarded for their effort.
Too many politicians and employees fail to understand what jobs should be about. Business jobs are not meant to be a social service but created so the business can function.
Socialists never understand this.
Ankur: how do you imagine parents managed before all this twaddle?
Speaking from personal experience, and that of my friends, you had babies, Dad had a day or two off if he was lucky, and then family, friends and neighbours helped you out.
And my family went without new cars and foreign holidays and expensive doodahs, because we thought one parent should stay home and actually be a parent! How reactionary is that!
Osborne should be radical and introduce transferable personal allowances, which would enable more families to avoid the day nursery/two wage earner problems.
Bad move.
'Wrap parents in cotton wool and to hell with small businesses' seems to be the bottom line.
When my children were born I had nearly nine months to plan the point at which I would take my annual leave so that I could support my wife during those first few weeks of motherhood.
Can today's fathers not manage to do that any more?
Child rearing is not a personal right devoid of obligations. Why should the state and small businesses carry the can for those who choose to procreate?
The pendulum is swinging too far in support of the apparent 'right' of people to have children and then expect others to pick up the tab.
Thank you, Adrian Yalland, there's no-one who understands the problems faced by small businesses today - other than owners of small businesses.
Back in 1997, Brown said he recognised that SMEs were the backbone of the UK. Dave Cameron said something similar when he assumed the leadership. Yet there is still no full report from the Conservatives (due summer 2007) on SMEs, the interim report now one year old.
We have decided to stop expanding, stopped recruiting, and see what happens. Also, the launch of a further business, which would have created c.10 jobs has been frozen, due to the employment laws. 1 October 2004 was the day SMEs were murdered.
The subject of maternity and parental leave is thorny since, on the surface, it doesn't seem fair that employees of larger organisations (who can more easily cover lengthy absences) should have better parental leave than those employed in small businesses. However, I have to agree with Adrian's idea of statutory leave being drastically reduced. If businesses want to give extra leave as part of a benefits package, that should be up to them; that's part of the free market principles.
One other point, which is a bugbear of mine, is the problem of parental leave when a child is sick. I'm fed up with the mother taking the time off from my tiny business (without warning, of course) when the father could provide the same care, and is employed by a far larger organisation.
Asquith - very nice of you to say so. You are clearly mad even before the cider kicks in!
I did indeed have a blog with all my views on, but I went through a very busy patch where I was just unable to keep it updated. So I took it down.
It did however once come 32nd in Mr Dales 100 best Tory blogs. So he is mad too!
Stupidly, I lost all the posts I had uploaded! shame as there were some good ones in there. Not all rants!
Perhaps I should start one up again - although I don't know if anyone ever read what I wrote before - except for my mother, and she was only being polite.
As a small business man I think the policy has been very well thought out indeed.
Problem is, that it has been thought out by some kind of pan national organization, not in anyway by our own politicians. Who just do as they are told these days, and in fact any days.
The almost complete end of small business is a EU and therefore a big money, New World Order, long term policy.
I saw this coming 15 years ago. Which is why I have already deliberately shrunk my business to family members only.
Myself and my wife worked all the way though all but the week of our child's birth. When I myself only took off 6 hours, to witness it.
Look out people its small business now. Medium business next. Which will leave you and your family completely at the mercy of government conspiring, monopoly given, multi-national, minimally untaxed corporations.
In short.
Neo-Fascism and Neo-Marxism combined in perfectly evil harmony.
Who will then rob you so blind, even a guide dog will not be able to help you see your way out of effective slavery.
There is a song that gos something like this. Which says all there is to say on the matter.
You shift 16 tons of No 9 coal
and what do you get,
another day older and deeper in debt.
St Peter don't you call me cos I cant go.
I sold my soul to the company store.
Tescos for just one example
Atlas shrugged
Adrian Yallard
You make very many good and obviously true points. However you are so very wrong in your major conclusion, that I feel compelled to make the following points.
It is not the small business man that pays the ultimate price. We in business have to find our own way to survive and prosper or die. Its as simple as that. This my friend, has always been the case.
The people that suffer are the people these type of policies are supposedly there to protect.
The cost is met with rampant stagflation, lack of diversity of supply, Freedom, liberty, and just about every thing else that makes for a happy life FOR EVERYONE.
Small business men like ourselves would be wise to not expect any sympathy from either government or the people.
This by combination of BBC type propaganda, and perfectly normal human envy, to hate or at least highly distrust the small business community. To the point that many of them would gladly join the firing squad or happily help build the concentration camp for free.
Therefore sympathy, is the last possible thing you will get from virtually anyone but your own mother.
We are always the first when the revolution comes, up against the proverbial or actual wall.
This Neo-fascist/Neo-Marxist revolution is no different from any of the preceding ones.
My advice is get out of business ASAP. Then get all your remaining cash together and retire to sunnier climes, ASAP afterwards.
Or shrink the rapidly becoming 'hiding to nothing,' 'noose around your neck', as much as practically possible. Employing only yourself and close members of your family.
Before this or the next government shrink it for you, along with the house you are currently living in.
Or end up burying your strangled body in an unmarked grave, then pissing on it.
Atlas shrugged and then thought that maybe his extremely well thought out comments were not graphic or understandably paranoid enough, to really make his point as strongly as he would have liked.
It all depends on YOUR priorities, Iain?
Hatfield Girl: You sound too sensible to be true! you get my vote.
Cameron is one of them. Never forget this.
Tizzy - thank you for your comments.
My company is in the same situation as yours - torn between expanding to increase revenue, but held back by the concerns and risks associated with employing people associated with expansion. We could easily quadruple turnover in two years, but the costs of growth in the short term would exceed revenues, leading to cash flow issues. Without sympathetic support from our bank (which we don't have), we have to choose between staying the size we are, or getting in VCs. The trouble is VCs want a quick return too!
So....we stay the size we are, don't grow and don't realise our potential. It is simply too risky to expand.
I wonder therefore if this was the point that Anon 7.20 was making.
Anon 8.08. I read your first comments, and agreed. I am happy to 'prosper or die. I am hapy to go into the boxing ring of commrece and fight my corner. But what I am not expecting is being entered into the ring with both hands toied behind my back, whislt my opponent has successfully used is enormous lobbying and buying power to free himself from his handcuffs, and remains free to beat me to death!
I am not expecting a Government to 'do me a favour', but I am perplexed why a government should seemingly go out of it's way to be so obstructive. All I want is a level playing field - but I don;t have one, because legislation favours the bigger companies!
As I said, in order to prosper my company only needs for Government to leave me alone, stop interfering and stop hiking the amount it costs for me to employ people.
The difficulty is that this government sees every aspect of society, family and the economy as extensions of itself - simply there to implement its social policies!
Your analysis is actually really interesting, and I would like you to write some more on it. For example, as a capitalist, I am appalled by the power of multi nationals and globlaised companies who monopolise markets and have the same negative influence on consumer choice as did Communism! i.e. ultimately selling what they want to sell at a price they want to charge. It is effectively restricting supply by dominating the market. The consumer has no choice as there is no competition!
For me, the best kind of capitalism is not large-scale corporations, but competitive SMEs.
The trouble is the global climate, and this government is particular don't give a toss about SMEs, because it is easier for them to deal with and control larger companies (mostly via collective bargaining/trade unions/regulation), who in return get tax breaks and can invest millions in lobbying government.
SMEs are at best an irrelevance, and at worst a nuisance, because we are square pegs in round holes!
Sorry - annon 7.20 and 8.08 - assume you are 'Atlas Shrugged'. Please write more, it's a valid line of thinking!
David Lindsay - I love your idea. Some kind of "parental voucher scheme" perhaps? Some kind of fund that the parent/employer pays into, against which funds are drawn down against?
Brilliant. I know this to be true. My son needs so much more of my time now than he did when he was a new born. Then it was just supporting my wife and passing the occasional nappy. Now it's GCSE options, girlfriend problems, getting him motivated to do his paper round......much more demanding than a new born.
But the scheme would have to be transferable though as so many people shift jobs.
As an employer I would be so much more instinctively sympathetic to this suggestion than I ever would be to months off for a new born.
I would even support a scheme which gave parents an extra two weeks leave every third year (based on Freud's theory of childhood development for example).
But it as to be with consent of those who are paying for it, and a partnership - not just the SMEs coughing up for it!
Adrian Yalland's penultimate post was telling. Because there is no alternative voice, Adrian. They are all of one mind.
SOCIALISM.
Sauve qui peu! They want to keep you as milch cows. Corralled. Under control, but producing.
Get. Out. Of. Britain.
(Sorry about capitalising prepositions.)
So whatever the family benefits of this policy announcement may be (and they are many) I hope that safeguards for small businesses have been properly thought through. (Iain)
I would go much further. As the former owner and operator of a series of small businesses the biggest bugbear I suffered was not the tax, not the H&S, not the petty officialdom, not even the customers. No it was the employees. Every (wo)man jack of them had rights you see. It didn't matter how dishonest, incompetent or lazy an employee was, you couldn't sack the bugger without paying compensation which I refuse on principle to do.
The answer is quite simple. Just pass a one-sentence Act rendering all businesses with 50 employees or fewer exempt from all the employment protection rubbish etc. And yes this would also apply to maternity/paternity leave, holiday entitlements and so on. Larger companies can afford to employ HR departments, they can look after themselves.
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