Firms ‘have to invent reasons’ to axe staff

Mr Shapps said a majority Conservative government would make it easier to sack staff if it “hasn’t worked out” without the stigma of firing them or the need to make a post redundant.

Setting out the Tory plans for the 2015 election, he said: “In the next Conservative manifesto you will see an attempt to make employment law reflect the realities of modern Britain and proper business rather than a fantasy world where you only have two options and both are completely inadequate.”

Drawing on his own experience, Mr Shapps said: “I started a printing company 23 years ago, it still runs to this day, and we always sat there and wondered how it is that when you know that somebody is not working out right for the company, you have to effectively end up coming up with disingenuous reasons why you need to change that role.

“Either you have to say that role itself is now redundant and re-engineer the way the department operates or you have to say that person was so bad at their job that you must fire them, and it’s disciplinary and will go on their record.

“You either have to pretend the role has gone, or you have to fire the person. That is crazy, it doesn’t stack up to what really happens out there in the real world. In the real world it can be that it just didn’t work out.

“It’s not something that should be a slur and a bad record on that employee’s report and it isn’t something that should force a company to have to reorganise a department even though they are perfectly happy with the job descriptions in each department.

“We should be honest about this, we should as a country say there should be a way of saying to people ‘thank you very much, it hasn’t worked out but here’s a decent package for you to move on.”