‘Predator’ jibe as Osborne clamps down on employment rights

GEORGE Osborne will use his speech to the Tory party conference tomorrow to clamp down on employment rights and planning regulations, prompting accusations from union leaders that he was returning his party to the stereotype of the “old nasty Tories”.

The Chancellor will introduce new laws preventing workers from taking employers to an industrial tribunal until they have served two years. He claimed yesterday the move would boost employment as firms were currently deterred from hiring for fear of court action. Osborne will also announce measures to reduce red tape and end the ability of civil servants to work as union representatives.

Meanwhile Prime Minister David Cameron hit back at Ed Miliband’s attack on “predator” industries. “The role for government is not to single out good and bad industries, it’s to make it easy as possible for all industries, all business, to grow, invest, take people on,” Cameron said.

The moves on business and regulation come after Downing Street suffered a rebuke of its economic policy yesterday from the Tory head of the Commons Treasury Select Committee, Andrew Tyrie. He said policies pursued by the Tory-Lib Dem coalition needed “radical improvement”, and called for a “coherent and credible” plan on the economy.

On plans to cut employment rights, a spokesman for the GMB Union said: “The Tory Party is increasingly being funded by the asset strippers and predators.

“That explains why the Tories want to reduce the employment rights of ordinary workers not to be sacked from their livelihoods unfairly. They are the same old nasty Tories now in the pockets of the predatory elite.”