Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner’s plan to overhaul of workers’ rights has again become the subject of a warning business could be put off hiring if she pursues it. 57% of bosses surveyed by the Institute of Directors (IoD) said they were “less likely to hire” new workers as a result of the planned employment rights bill. The plans would see workers handed “basic rights” from day one, including sick and holiday pay, with staff given the right to ignore calls, texts and emails outside regular working hours. The Government also wants to ban “exploitative zero-hours contracts” and give staff the right to demand flexible working, including a four-day week. Alexandra Hall-Chen at the IoD said new legislation could act as a deterrent to employers who would otherwise expand their payrolls. She told The Telegraph: “The Government’s self-imposed deadline for the introduction of employment rights legislation is now just over a month away. Time is running out, so it is essential that the Government starts to meaningfully engage with business on the detail of its proposed reforms to ensure that its growth mission is not derailed”.

Wage growth slowed “markedly” over the summer, new figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show. In the three months to July, annual wage growth including bonuses slowed to 4%, its slowest pace of growth since November 2020 and down from 4.5% last month. Excluding bonuses, pay growth eased to 5.1% from 5.4% previously, the slowest rate of pay growth since June 2022. Unemployment, meanwhile, dipped to 4.1% in the period. Coupled with a decline in the jobs market, the fact wage growth slowed - and by more than anticipated by economists - is likely to be seen as justification of Bank of England policies to bring down inflation, and may prompt another interest rate cut sooner or later this year. When it cut interest rates from 5.25% to 5% in August, the Bank said it would continue to keep a close eye on wage growth.

The Low Pay Commission has recommended that the minimum wage rise by 6% to above £12 an hour for the first time. The British Retail Consortium attacked the idea, saying: “Retailers strongly support the objective of higher wages and pay growth in the industry has outpaced the UK economy in eight of the last nine years. However, with retailers facing rising business costs, including increasing business rates and fees, the combined impact of additional costs will add to the pressure on businesses and limit their ability to invest”.

Work and Pensions secretary Liz Kendall has unveiled a new advisory board on reducing high levels of worklessness among working-age people, describing economic inactivity as “the greatest employment challenge for a generation”. The Labour Market Advisory Board is part of the Government’s Get Britain Working plan which aims to get more people back to work and reach an 80% employment rate. Chair Paul Gregg said: "We have seen a sharp increase in economic inactivity and long-term sickness, most notably in our young people post-pandemic. Further, real wage growth has been heavily suppressed for 15 years hitting living standards and government tax revenues. Reversing these trends will be key to ensuring the long-term prosperity of the UK's labour market”. ONS figures show that 9.4m working-age Britons are not in employment or looking for work while 2.8m are not working because of long-term sickness.  

The employment tribunal began hearing yesterday a case involving more than 60,000 mainly female Asda shop workers who are arguing their roles are of equal value to predominantly male warehouse workers who are currently paid up to £3.74 an hour more. They are seeking more than £1.2bn in compensation in the equal pay case. The hearing is expected to last about three months.

Britain is importing record amounts of electricity from overseas at a cost of £250m a month, according to energy company Drax. Some 20% of the grid’s power needs were met by neighbouring countries during the second quarter of this year, following the closure of coal-fired and nuclear power stations. The import is double the volume generated by wind and solar farms, and around four times the amount of power exported. Coal fired plants are set to end completely as part of the Government’s net zero plans. No new nuclear power plants have come online since Sizewell B in 1995. Earlier this week it was reported that Energy Secretary Ed Miliband was considering halting plans to build a new nuclear power station in Angelsey, Wales.

Ofcom has launched a review of public service media after its latest annual report revealed that over half of British adults now use Facebook, Youtube and Instagram for news, up from 47% in 2023. The communications regulator says 71% of adults in the UK now get their news online, just pipping the 70 per cent that get it on the television. Yih-Choung Teh, Ofcom group director of strategy and research, said: “Television has dominated people’s news habits since the sixties, and it still commands really high trust. But we’re witnessing a generational shift to online news, which is often seen as less reliable – together with growing fears about misinformation and deepfake content”. The first phase of Ofcom’s review will assess how well public service broadcasters have served UK audiences online, while the second phase will explore potential regulatory or legislative changes to support the future of public service media. Ofcom’s research found that six in ten people recalled seeing content they believed to be false or misleading in the run-up to this year’s general election, with one in ten reporting they encountered such content several times a day.[1] In general, general news reach is also gradually falling, with a drop from 75% to 70% last year, Ofcom says.

The Government is close to finalising a £1.25bn deal with Tata Steel to support Port Talbot steelworks’ transition to ‘greener’ energy, Sky News reports, saying that Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds is set to update Parliament on the agreement. The deal is said to include a £500m government grant to help the Indian-owned company shift from traditional coke-fired blast furnaces to electric arc furnaces. Sky said Tata Steel would contribute the remaining £750m required. However, the deal will not prevent the loss of 2,800 jobs, and ongoing negotiations are said now to be focused on finalising redundancy terms and retraining programmes for workers affected. Meanwhile, Sky says, talks regarding the future of the Chinese-owned British Steel plant in Scunthorpe have stalled. Scunthorpe could close it blast furnaces by December, with the loss of a further 3,000 jobs. Labour's General Election manifesto promised £2.5bn to revitalise the UK steel industry but, like the previous Conservative Government, that funding is available only for investment in new greener steel production facilities, not to keep carbon-intensive plants going.

TGI Fridays’ UK owner Hostmore is set to be wound down and de-listed from The London Stock Exchange after it was forced to drop plans to buy the global franchise for the US restaurant chain for £177m. Hostmore runs 87 restaurants in the UK, but is in the process of selling them, however it has warned it is not expecting to “recover any meaningful value” from their sale as their value is likely to amount to less than it owes to creditors and banks. Shares in the hospitality firm plummeted almost 90% following the announcement yesterday.

Revolution Bars has brought in renowned investor Luke Johnson as a non-executive chairman to help revive the struggling business. Johnson replaces Keith Edelman, who has served as chairman for the last nine years. Johnson has a 20% stake in Revolution. He has extensive experience in the hospitality sector, founding several companies including the private equity firm Risk Capital Partners, and either chairing or investing in a range of ventures including Pizza Express and Gail’s bakery.

Press Contact

Why Media Press Department
Website: whymedia.com / marketingnewscast.com
Email: press@whymedia.com
Telephone: 020 3007 6002