'Workers deserve fair treatment, but so do the businesses that employ them' - Your Letters: September 19

I’m writing as the owner of a small but fast-growing fire engineering and consultancy company to share my concerns about the proposed Employment Rights Bill and the damage it could do to businesses like mine.

After 21 years as an employee, I worked hard to build something of my own. Today, I employ over 40 people. That journey has opened my eyes to the complexity of employment legislation. I make it a priority to treat my team with care and respect, but this bill feels like a step too far.

The government’s consultation was shockingly limited. Just 165 responses, and only 32 from businesses. That’s not serious engagement and in our work - we carry out resident engagement surveys for high-rise buildings under the Building Safety Act. We can get more than 165 responses from a single block of flats. So why is something this important being pushed through with so little input from the people who will actually have to implement it?

The financial impact of day one rights and changes to statutory sick pay will be real and immediate. Add that to the recent rise in National Insurance contributions, and it’s hard not to feel like small businesses are being squeezed from every angle. We’re already competing with overseas outsourcing, and this could be the final straw. When businesses fold the jobs go with them.

We need policies that support growth and stability. That’s how you create job security and how you generate tax revenue to fund welfare and the NHS. Not by piling on more costs and risks for employers. I hope someone in government is listening. Workers deserve fair treatment, but so do the businesses that employ them. If we don’t strike a balance, there won’t be many businesses left to offer jobs at all.

Jonathan Pallister, Managing Director, Stafford

FLAG IS SYMBOL OF TOLERANCE

I agree with Chris Smith that we should be proud to display our flag, removing the racist connotations it presently has.

St George was from present-day Turkey and is the patron saint of more than 20 countries, revered by both Christians and Muslims. The fact that we share our hero with countries including Ethiopia, Palestine and Lebanon, demonstrates the tolerance our own country has. However, none of us can admire the flag-waving Nazis in 1930s Germany, when the nationalism of the far-right was used as a tactic to spread division and hate. The nonsense, that somehow one group of people were somehow superior to another, led to WW2 with the deaths of over 70 million, the majority women and children.

Under Trump the USA has never been more divided. 'Free speech' has spread extremism, with political assassinations on the increase. Rarely is a flag burned in the UK and Chis's suggestion we make it illegal, as Trump has done in the USA, would be yet another unnecessary burden on our police and justice system.

John Turnbull, Shrewsbury

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