Testing the Coalition’s commitment to growth

The Beecroft report is an early test of the government’s willingness to put growth and jobs first. Replacing unfair dismissal with redundancy pay based on length on service would be a sensible step.

The argument for it is two-fold. First, the more difficult it is to fire people, the more reluctant firms will be to hire people. Second, the current unfair dismissal culture not only makes firms reluctant to take people on but also swallows up a huge amount of time as firms try to jump through the legal hoops to avoid the threat of a legal challenge.

Norman Lamb’s comments today that “to throw away employment protection for everyone would be madness” is being taken as ruling out Beecroft’s suggestion. But as always with the Lib Dems it is worth going beyond the sabre-rattling soundbite. Lamb went on to say that the Lib Dems were prepared to look at ways to make it easier to dismiss under-performing workers.