Everything old is new again. This idea came up when I worked on business regulation and it’s stupid because it HURTS small producers by creating a race to the bottom on quality and safety, trashing their reputation. twitter.com/rowenamason/st…
If you are a high-quality producer, do you want some chancer making the same product as you for 5% less with a much higher risk? Why would you want that? Are you going to cut your standards or maintain them and risk this guy putting your product on the front page of the Mail?
If you’re an employer, do you want to screw your staff over on working time or health and safety? Maybe it will save a few quid, but how much will it cost you on staff loyalty or turnover? It empowers the worst employers and hurts the best.
What about if you’re a mid sized producer? Are you going to hire that 501st person and have all the rules you’ve ignored so far suddenly hit you? Look at the number of businesses who hover under the VAT threshold for your answer.
This is bad for businesses, bad for consumers, bad for workers. Like the tax cuts, it’s ideological nonsense that doesn’t work in the real world, but unlike the tax cuts we don’t have the markets to slap some sense into the UK government.
Originally posted as a thread of 5 tweets on Twitter on 2 October 2022. View the original thread.