Nick Clegg: 'New Powers To Sack Workers Will Not Create Jobs'

PA  |  Posted: Updated: 22/05/2012 10:56   PA

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Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg

Nick Clegg has condemned proposals to make it easier for businesses to fire workers, saying he has never supported the scheme.

There is no evidence that creating "industrial-scale insecurity" among workers will help secure new jobs, according to the Deputy Prime Minister and Lib Dem leader.

His comments are likely to fuel divisions within the coalition over the controversial "compensated no-fault dismissal" scheme, contained in a report for Vince Cable's Business Department by venture capitalist Adrian Beecroft.

Speaking at a Sutton Trust conference on social mobility in central London today, Clegg said: "I don't support them and I never have. I've not seen any evidence that creating industrial-scale insecurity amongst millions of workers is a way of securing new jobs.

"So far, there's just no evidence that in the highly flexible labour market that we have, comparatively speaking, for instilling greater insecurity and let's be blunt, fear, amongst workers, at a time of great economic anxiety as a way of fostering new employment."

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Nick Clegg has condemned proposals to make it easier for businesses to fire workers, saying he has never supported the scheme. There is no evidence that creating "industrial-scale insecurity" among...
Nick Clegg has condemned proposals to make it easier for businesses to fire workers, saying he has never supported the scheme. There is no evidence that creating "industrial-scale insecurity" among...
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10:59 AM on 05/29/2012
Companies laying people off easily may not always be in the best interests of the company. If you have a load of staff sat around doing nothing then you may as well put them to good use, but if you sack them then you may have just lost the ability to innovate.

Beware the law of unintended consequences...
09:34 AM on 05/23/2012
It's like Dave's Big Society - make it easier to fire people? The whole thing just won't work because of the massive investment required for the building of Workhouses, you can't get a kid up the balanced flu of a central heating boiler and, despite, the Government attempting to get the crime figures up to Victorian rates, they still haven't quite managed it!
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Laatab
All The Worlds A Stage
10:37 PM on 05/22/2012
Well this was Vince Cables headline this morning and old Nick is thinking this'll make me look good so he's filched it of Vince for the good of the party. But then again, maybe the whole thing is just the Tory's throwing the Lib Dems a bone so it looks like they are doing something other being political poodles. Another part of this set of proposals, not mentioned here, has the effect of making it legal for employers to employ illegal immigrants (I kid you not). Think they dropped this bit though to keep things simple and stupid for Nicky because they worry that if any questions get too complicated he may drop them in it. The whole thing btw has been dreamed up by some sociopathic entrepreneur who has been let off his meds and whose name slips my tiny proletariate mind atm.
10:30 PM on 05/22/2012
it gives employers the opportunity to invent reasons to sack staff when perhaps for example business becomes slack.
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novelist2000
veritas non olet
01:54 AM on 05/23/2012
or when the human resources guy has received a brown envelope from a desparate parent or grandparent. And next year, he can do it again.

It does create jobs after ten years, though, because the human resources guy will then retire to his villa in Spain.

Willy-nilly sackings - for the entrepreneur of the 21st Century.
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Reality always bites
Sometimes just a bit peckish
08:43 PM on 05/22/2012
All MPs have insecure jobs- Tenure of five years and reliant on the public to vote them back in.
That hasn't stopped the number of MPs increasing to an astonishing 650.
(Job creation at it's zenith I hope)
Time we had a system where each MP had to face the electorate more often- and where any constituency returning less than 50% of eligible voters lost the right to have an MP.
We could whittle them down to about 50 max at the next election!
08:42 PM on 05/22/2012
An example of the law of averages, If an idiot says alot eventually he will speak some sense.
07:40 PM on 05/22/2012
Many UK workers have already been replaced by cheaper EU workers. 80% of all new world goes to immigrants. This legislation will therefore have little effect as there is already large scale job insecurity in the UK.
08:38 PM on 05/22/2012
It will have an effect, to enable more firms to sack more British workers and replace them immediately with more EU workers at half the wage.
07:33 PM on 05/22/2012
I agree withNick Clegg. Mr Nick Clegg has told the truth. In the UK, taxes are too high and subsequently high unemployment. In the UK, taxes should be cut, in employers' National Insurance contributions, cut in benefits, and housing benefits, abolish it. Lower taxes on air travel and a council tax cut. It is very important to understand that ‘’job creation is a progressive project, and you don’t create jobs in the UK by attacking the businesses that create them.’’
07:26 PM on 05/22/2012
i guess one thing good may come out of this union membership will grow and all the problems that can course.
05:45 PM on 05/22/2012
what really going on here is sack all british workers bring in more poles n africans to do jobs cheaper
05:44 PM on 05/22/2012
they should let us sack these lying thieving pigs that they are clegg cant shout his mouth off all he likes he is a nobody
cameroon will do as he wants clegg will get few backhanders and will sit down and roll over just as he allways has done
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MrAnon
05:44 PM on 05/22/2012
First sensible thing that has come out of this idiot's mouth! Keep this up Clegg, and maybe, just maybe you will be forgiven when the next election comes.
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britalia56
05:32 PM on 05/22/2012
well done clegg, even i can work that one out, but still no one is listening to you, shame we the public cant have the same powers to sack rubbish ministers
05:24 PM on 05/22/2012
Does this proposal affect usseless bankers who got us into this mess in the first place, off course not. Venture capitalists like Adrian Beecroft ( probably soon to be Sir Adrian then Lord Adrian of Bstardshire) are asset strippers and vultures of the highest order and should wiped from the face of the earth
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Mickey Mouse 1
There are no lies or deceit on a chess board.
05:23 PM on 05/22/2012
Nick Clegg: 'New Powers To Sack Workers Will Not Create Jobs'

He's back stating the bleeding obvious again, but he should know that it will enable employers to get rid of all the rubbish they have been putting up with all these years. Government red tape is one of the biggest barriers to growth in the country, apart from our spineless political leadership.