Kemi Badenoch defended legislation introducing the right to flexible work in a conversation with the businessman James Dyson, despite being outspoken in her opposition to the measures during the Conservative leadership contest.
Minutes of a meeting during her time as business secretary last June, seen by the Guardian, show the pair discussed the Tory government’s plans for flexible working laws, with Dyson raising concerns about the impact they would have on his business.
After the meeting, Badenoch ordered a review of the impact of the flexible working bill, which gave workers the right to ask for flexible working. The bill itself had already passed and became law the following month.
The documents show that during the meeting Badenoch mounted a defence of the bill and told Dyson that flexible working “goes beyond working from home, such as the ability to work compressed hours”. “[The] bill seeks to allow employees to request these from day one of employment not mandate companies into agreement,” she said.
Dyson, the vacuum cleaner entrepreneur, said the bill “would cause significant issues for Dyson”, as he requires all Dyson employees to be in the office, and “the bill makes it hard for Dyson to mandate this, additional HR requirements.”.
The document, released under freedom of information law, states that Dyson told Badenoch there was “no need to legislate on this matter”. It then notes: “SoS [secretary of state] would like to review this bill and the impacts on companies. PO [private office] to commission a one pager.” Such a document would be likely to include an overview of the impact of the law on businesses.
It was a 2019 Conservative manifesto commitment to give workers the right to request flexible working from day one of a new job. But Badenoch has since been a vocal opponent of flexible working – as well as making the argument that small businesses already bear too much burden for rights such as maternity pay and the minimum wage.
She said in September: “I find it extraordinary that Labour are scraping the policy barrel here to find more ways of flexible working when actually we need to get more people into the workplace. They are not learning, they’re not getting the skills at the same rate they used to, which is one of the challenges of working from home.”
Badenoch told TalkTV she supported home working “when it makes sense, but it shouldn’t necessarily be the default. What is extraordinary is that Labour have had 14 years to think about what they want to do with the economy. They have got no answers”.
The Tory leadership contender also caused controversy at the Conservative party conference when she described maternity pay as “excessive” when it was paid out of taxation, and said that people had more children when maternity pay did not exist. Badenoch has since stated that she is not against maternity pay.
She also cited the minimum wage as an example of a burden on business, saying at a party conference event: “There’s a cafe in my constituency that closed down and the lady who owned it said, ‘I can’t afford to pay the wages any more. I can’t afford minimum wage. I can’t afford for my staff to go on maternity’.”
A spokesperson for Badenoch said: “The flexible working legislation was a Labour PMB [private member’s bill] accepted by a previous business secretary. Kemi had significant concerns with this bill but, as the minutes show, wanted to ensure Dyson was aware of the key provisions.
“As the CEO of one of the country’s leading manufacturing businesses, Kemi took James Dyson’s concerns very seriously and commissioned a review based on the issues he raised in this meeting.”
Emily Thornberry, the former shadow attorney general, said: “Kemi Badenoch’s appalling record in government still lingers. It’s clear, like all of the Tory leadership contenders, she has learned nothing from the public rejecting 14 years of Tory government, which left working people worse off.
“This week while the Tories debated scrapping maternity pay and minimum wage, the Labour government brought forward plans for the biggest boost to workers’ rights in a generation. That’s the difference Labour makes in power.”
Dyson declined to comment but a source at the company said the businessman was right to make those arguments – which reflect his public position – and to meet with senior politicians as an employer of thousands of UK scientists and engineers.
Dyson has said that employees in his company must be present in laboratories, research and work spaces to work side-by-side in product development and design, as well as learning from and teaching each other.
