Labour are about to ‘switch off’ growth

What a joke the government’s promise to concentrate on ‘growth, growth, growth’ is becoming. Since the Prime Minister uttered those words on entering Downing Street, we have had road schemes cancelled and money withdrawn from a supercomputer project at Edinburgh university, that could have given Britain’s AI industry a leg-up. We have had fat pay rises for public sector workers without any requirement for them to adopt more efficient working practices. And we have businesses about to be lumbered with the requirement to offer employees flexible working hours from day one of their employment.

Now there is another productivity-destroying proposal on the table. Angela Rayner has drawn up plans for a ‘right to switch off’, that would stop employers from contacting their staff outside working hours. Businesses that dared to do so, it has been suggested, could be ordered to pay their staff thousands of pounds in compensation in employment tribunals.