Kemi Badenoch: Labour’s Employment Bill will kill Christmas working

Today [Monday 24^th November 2025], Kemi Badenoch MP, Leader of the Conservative Party, gave a speech to the CBI conference. Kemi Badenoch MP made the case that Labour's Employment Rights Bill (ERB) is a disaster for jobs and will take Britain back to the 1970s by handing militant trade unions more power than they have had in several decades.

In her speech, Kemi Badenoch MP said:

Checked against delivery

“Thank you, all of you.

I know you all are very busy people.

You have staff to pay, customers to serve, boards to convince and banks to placate.

And you are spending you time this morning with me. I am very, very grateful.

Because the people in this room, you, are the people who keep Britain going.

You are the people who drive our economy.

And I know how hard things have been.

Over the past year I have visited more than 150 businesses.

Big listed companies, Family firms, Tech start-ups here and in the US. Manufacturers in the Midlands. Hospitality in coastal towns, Oil and Gas firms in Aberdeen.

I have sat in your boardrooms, walked your shopfloors and back offices, and I have listened.

And what you tell me is very simple.

You want to grow.

You want to invest.

You want to hire.

But you feel squeezed, second guessed, and constantly interfered with by a government that does not really understand how business works.

We are all waiting in trepidation for the budget in just two days' time.

We spent the last 3 months, hearing nothing, except that horrible taxes are coming. 

But when I visit businesses and ask them what most causes anxiety, yes, they do talk about the tax burden. 

But the single measure that is complained about more than any other in this government's programme is not a tax rise, it is the Employment Rights Bill.

Businesses don't oppose rights for workers.

You know that good staff are your most valuable asset.

But you can see, better than anyone in Westminster that this Bill is not about fairness, it is about power.

It is about putting unions in charge of your workplace and sending you the bill.

So, I want to explain why Conservatives oppose it.

Why we will the terrible measures in it.

And how that fits into a bigger Conservative plan to get Britain Working again.

First, let's be clear what we are dealing with.

This Bill is not a little tweak to modernise the law.

It is a 330-page assault on flexible working written in the TUC's headquarters designed to drag Britain back to a world where unions call the shots and employers carry the blame.

For thirty years, flexible labour markets have been one of Britain's real strengths.

They allowed us to create millions of jobs after the financial crisis.

They helped us keep unemployment much lower than competitor countries. They are one of the reasons we became the largest exporter of financial services in the world right up till 2024.

This Bill rips that up.

Take day one tribunal rights.

Under this Bill, a new hire can turn up at nine in the morning and lodge a claim with an employment tribunal, before they've even worked out where the toilets are.

There are already around 491,000 claims in the tribunal backlog. Yes, you heard that right. 491,000 claims, right now.

It takes about two years for a case to be heard.

Most employers are told by their lawyers to settle, even when they have done nothing wrong, because it's not worth the hassle or the expense to fight the case.

That does not protect workers. It just makes hiring riskier, slower and a lot more expensive.

It is a gift to the litigious and a disincentive for anyone who wants to give someone a job.

Then there is the de facto ban on seasonal and flexible work.

If a student, undergraduate, anyone chooses to get a Christmas job and works 40 hours a week in the three months to December, they then have the right to those same hours in January, February, and March.

Except there's no demand then, there's no need for extra staff, or the money to pay them.

So, a measure designed to ensure employment does the opposite, and everyone loses.

You know what happens then? Rational employers stop taking on seasonal staff at all.

The farm does not hire the extra fruit pickers.

The hotel does not take on staff for the summer.

And, of course, the high street shop does not offer Christmas jobs.

These are the very opportunities that got many of us started. 

My first jobs were on the high street. I started at McDonald's and then I got a job in New Look. Part time. Those were the places that gave me a chance to learn.

Many of you in this room probably had your first job during a summer holiday or on a Christmas shift. 

These opportunities are at a real risk of disappearing because of this legislation.

And there is more.

Let's look at the so called “right to roam”.

Under this Bill, any union with designs on your workforce, gets the legal right, to march into your private business to recruit members.

If you employ 21 or more people, that union can insist you gather your staff, give it physical access to your workplace, and even provide a platform on your internal digital networks for the union.

And they can do this every single week.

It's in the legislation.

This is not industrial relations, this is industrial intimidation.

And then we have lower strike thresholds.

Today, unions need a 50 per cent turnout to call a lawful strike.

Under Labour's Bill, that safeguard is attacked.

There just needs to be a majority of those who turn out in favour of strike action.

So, to use an extreme example, in a workforce of 1,000, if only three people choose to vote, and two of them vote to strike, the entire organisation can be held to ransom.

Yes, this is an absurd example, but it is to highlight the absurdity of these provisions

This is what happens when you design law in a back room at the TUC, instead of in the real world.

None of this is about giving ordinary workers a fair deal. It is all about giving union barons, bureaucrats, and employment lawyers more power.

So, when I say that this is not a pro worker Bill, I mean it.

It is a pro union, anti-business, anti-growth blueprint.

It punishes the people who create jobs.

And it will hurt the very people that it claims to help.

That is why Conservatives will repeal every job-destroying, anti-business measure in it.

Britain cannot prosper with a state that smothers ambition, and a labour market designed solely for union bosses, rather than for the millions of people who want to work, hire, build, and grow.

Now, some will say that this is all exaggerated. They will say “it is about fairness”, and that somehow Britain can absorb all of this without a cost.

You know that is not true. It will cost businesses £5 billion.

Peter Kyle said this morning that the government's number one priority is growth. This destroys growth. That £5 billion that will have to be met with higher prices or fewer jobs.

I do not believe that a government that has growth as a number one priority will be pushing this.

They have their heads in the sands.

I heard Peter Kyle today say that there are going to be 26 consultations, so it's going to be alright.

It is not going to be alright.

And if 26 consultations are what you need to fix things, then you have a really really big problem.

We do not have a growth problem in the UK because British people need more rights. 

We have a growth problem because the state is too big. 

Fewer and fewer people are working, to support more and more people out of work and living on welfare.

The rider is getting heavier than the horse.

And then look at the productivity costs.

Every hour spent dealing with a tribunal claim is an hour you are not spending on a new product.

Every law that makes you think twice about hiring, is a law that stops someone getting their first job.

Every regulation that moves risk from the state to the employer, nudges investment out of Britain and into countries that still understand reward.

Right now, Britain needs more people in work. More investment, more exports, more risk taking, not more rules.

We need to get Britain working again.

That is how we pay for our NHS.

That is how we fund defence.

That is how we look after the vulnerable.

Keir Starmer talks the talk of national renewal and growth.

But he walks the walk of stagnation and decline.

And that is why this Bill is such a problem.

It attacks the very flexibility that made us resilient in the past.

It tells investors that our politics is moving in the wrong direction.

It makes it harder to hire, harder to fire, harder to adapt.

It is the opposite of what a serious pro-growth strategy would look like.

And the price tag is eye-watering.

The government's own impact assessment puts the cost to employers at up to £5 billion a year.

This wasn't us that made up that number. That has come from the government.

And they're still doing it.

So, who are we fighting for when we oppose this Bill?

It's very clear.

We are on the side of the small business that cannot afford an in-house legal team but still wants to take a chance on a young apprentice.

We are on the side of the saver and the pensioner whose livelihoods depend on this country actually growing.

We are on the side of the worker who wants work to pay, not to be trapped in a welfare system that rewards idleness and punishes effort.

We are on the side of the young person, looking for their first break, who may find that opportunity never exists because this Bill stops companies making an offer.

We are not on the side of those who treat business as a piggy bank, and the law as a political weapon.

What Britain needs now is real fairness.

Real fairness means living within our means, out of respect for taxpayers.

It means helping people back to work because idleness wastes lives.

It means planning for tomorrow's children, not just today's headlines.

That is why our economic argument is simple.

We need to get Britain working to deliver a stronger economy.

To do that, government must first get its own house in order.

Our Golden Economic Rule is clear.

For every pound we save, at least half goes to paying down the deficit, and the rest goes to investing in our priorities for growth.

But living within our means is only half the story.

We also need a state that stops suffocating enterprise.

That means a relentless focus on deregulation and simplification.

So, how do you know I'm serious? It's because I've done it before 

When I was Business Secretary, I started a Smarter Regulation programme.

We reformed working time reporting requirements, saving businesses up to a billion pounds a year.

We raised company size thresholds, to take smaller firms out of some of the most onerous reporting rules.

I said a hard no to things like mandatory ethnicity pay reporting, that would have produced spreadsheets for activists, instead of jobs for workers.

That is the direction we must go in again.

A Conservative government led by me would scrap pointless reporting burdens and let managers manage.

We would focus the state on what it should do.

Secure our borders, enforce the law, protect property rights, provide essential services, reliable infrastructure, and then get out of your way.

For those of you who don't know this week is Family Business Week, so it's a great opportunity to remind everyone that is Conservative policy to scrap Labour's Family Business Tax.

And there is so much more.

But we are doing this not because we are anti worker, but because we know where growth really comes from.

It does not come from the Treasury.

It comes from you.

From the risk you take when you sign that lease.

From the mortgage you put against your own home.

From the hours you put in after everyone else has gone home.

And we believe you should be rewarded for that.

So, on Wednesday we will finally see the Budget.

Although it feels as though we've already seen about three different versions of it before Rachel Reeves has even stood at the Dispatch Box.

And I expect we will hear warm words about fairness and national renewal.

We will be told there is a hole in the public finances and that everyone must do their bit.

And we will see more tax rises dressed up as necessity.

They're not, we need to cut spending.

But if Rachel Reeves is serious about growth, if this government really cares about the future of British business, there is one easy, cost-free decision that they can take.

That is to scrap the Employment Rights Bill.

This Bill does not raise a single pound in revenue.

It does not help a single unemployed person into work.

It does not add a single unit of productivity.

It is a pure political project.

Killing it would be a sign to the world that Britain still understands what makes an economy grow.

If the Chancellor had any sense, and any regard for business, she would use the Budget to say, “we got this one wrong”, and then she would drop it.

It would be the cheapest pro-growth measure in the Red Book.

If she does not, then I repeat my promise.

At the first opportunity under my leadership, a Conservative government will repeal every job destroying, anti-business, anti-growth measure in this Bill, and we will restore common sense.

We will send a very clear message that Britain is open for business again.

But I will end with this.

A message to all of you.

You cannot sit this out.

Too often in recent years, business has retreated from the argument, for fear of criticism.

That cannot continue.

If you believe in enterprise, believe in opportunity, and believe in the idea that wealth has to be created before it can be shared, then we need you.

Speak up.

Tell your staff what this Bill means for jobs.

Tell your customers, what constant tax rises and red tape are doing to prices.

Challenge those who treat you as a problem to be managed, not a partner in our national success.

The choice for Britain is stark.

It's a future of higher taxes, thicker rulebooks, and slower growth.

Or a country where government lives within its means, business is free to grow, and work pays once again.

I know which side I am on.

And if you stand with us, let's get Britain working again, then together we can deliver a stronger economy and a better future for our country.”