Iain Duncan Smith MP: speeches

Speeches

• 7 Jul 2026 · Summer Jobs · Hansard source

  More

  It is all about throwing out the baby with the bathwater. I fully understand that the Government want to regulate some of that employment to ensure that people are protected, but the Employment Rights Act is so all-consuming and far-reaching that there is not just the cost—estimated at about £5 billion—for companies and businesses but the knock-on effect for those who need a job but can no longer be employed, as well as for those who would employ them but will have to close their businesses. Flexibility is critical in employment—it always has been. It has always been a case of, “What is the risk in hiring you? Do you have the experience? Can you do the job? Can I afford to pay you the wages? Do I have to do half that job for you as a result?” For small businesses, that is a real problem. The Employment Rights Act has been a real nightmare. The issue is not just that £5 billion cost but the way in which that impacts on economic growth. Regulating employment is not an isolated issue that does not affect anything else; it affects growth in the economy. I talked earlier about the triple whammy. With business rates alongside that, businesses face even higher costs and problems. They are being regulated a great deal, they do not have flexibility in employment, and they have to pay more. The third critical issue in our motion is the cost of energy in the United Kingdom, which is astonishing. We have the highest energy costs in the developed world—it could be said that we have the highest energy costs in the world as it is—and a huge amount of that is to do with the ridiculous helter-skelter drive to get to clean energy no matter what. We are now threatening businesses with fines—the car industry gets fines if the right cars are not produced—and energy costs are so high that businesses can no longer manage to manufacture goods here. We will need to manufacture goods when we need to spend the money that we do not have at the moment but will have to have for the defence industry. That is a manufacturing case, yet none of those industries says that it can afford to expand its manufacturing base because the cost of energy is so high. Those three things are critical. I therefore support the Opposition’s motion. I finish with one single fact. We have all been talking rather blithely about what we did in those summers and how we got our first jobs, but it is worth reminding ourselves that for the generation going through now, the flexibility, opportunities and ability to earn are far less than they have ever been. When we talk to our children, we discover how difficult employment is for them. We can talk to them about being able to earn the right money, about being able to pay for a house or about sky-high rents. This is a serious problem. If we want to face it and take it on, we should think of the old health dictum, “do no harm”. I say to the Government that when they pile those three massive burdens on to industry and the individual, they are doing great harm to those we need to protect. My advice to the Government is simply this: think again about the triple whammy and reduce the burden they have put on industries.