Labour must maintain business confidence, says CBI boss
The director general of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) has called on Labour activists not to seek to dilute the party’s pro-business credentials.
In an article aimed to coincide with the Labour Party’s National Policy Forum (NPF) taking place this weekend, Digby Jones urged activists to seek to build on its relationship with business, arguing: “The idea that business and Labour cannot have a relationship is out of date. It is for the NPF to ensure it stays that way.”
Significantly, Mr Jones chose to publicise his views in the left-wing magazine the Tribune, the first time he has ever written for the publication.
He said that: “Business people used to lack confidence in the ability of Labour to carry out a primary task of government: to run an economically competent administration. This is no longer the case thanks to the current Government’s commitment to macro-economic stability, sound public finances and a flexible labour market.”
“Low inflation, low interest rates, virtually no unemployment and good sustainable growth – all happening at the same time – has eluded this great country of ours for over a century.
Mr Jones attacked suggestions that Margaret Thatcher’s union legislation should be repealed, saying this would do “untold damage to the UK’s reputation as a place to do business.”
“Labour flexibility is not some clever way of giving companies the right to exploit workers. The fact that we have a flexible labour market and such low unemployment is no coincidence. Remember that no other country in Europe is employing as many of its people as we are.”
Unemployment in Germany is currently running at 10.5 per cent, France at 9.4 per cent, with the UK’s significantly lower at 4.8 per cent.
The CBI head said that a “new contact” between worker and employer is developing, whereby the employee accepts flexibility, but employers provide more training arguing that “skills give an employee more protection against unemployment in the workplace of the 21st century than regulations can ever provide.”
Mr Jones said that business is responding to concerns on equal pay, and seemingly moving away from businesses’ traditional opposition to a minimum wage, urging the Government to “throw the book at cowboy employers who don’t pay the minimum wage.”
