Political

‘Shares for rights’ flops – looks like those senior Lib Dems were right

During the controversy over the introduction of the ‘shares for rights’ scheme (whereby employees swap their employment rights for shares), senior Lib Dems told me that it wasn’t an issue to get too worked up about as the details of the scheme were so flawed that very few people would end up using it. The Tories will get the headlines they wanted about a scheme being introduced, but workers would be protected by the scheme being flawed.

It looks like that is indeed what is happening, for as the Financial Times reports:

Only a handful of companies have inquired about George Osborne’s plan to allow workers to swap shares for employment rights since the scheme came into law in April, in a sign that the chancellor’s pet project has flopped.

The business department told the Financial Times that it had received four inquires while HMRC had two requests for information for a scheme that the chancellor had expected thousands of businesses to join.

 

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