Government Minister Michael Gove has vowed to ban'slacking' councils from bringing in four-day working weeks in an attack on'skiving' town hall staff. The Levelling Up Secretary revealed yesterday that he is looking at changing the law to prevent local authorities from adopting a four-day week. If a four-day week pilot is being carried out until March 2024, the town halls where it is being operated will face a funding cut if they were to flout such a ban. Norwich City Council is also mulking a four-day working week. A four-day-week is when people must do all their work in 80 percent of their contract hours for 100 percent of their pay. Gove told The Sun on Sunday that they deserve 100 percent of the service, not 80 percent. This idea should be slacking in this way at the expense of hard-working taxpayers is completely wrong. It beggars belief that whilst in the midst of a housing crisis, new protections for renters stuck in Parliament and a levelling-up agenda that has utterly failed to deliver, this is what Michael Gove thinks is the right thing to be expending his energy on.
'The government has lost all sense of perspective. The needs of the British people have been completely ignored as the government is looking for the latest headline to chase.
Labour has been approached for comment. Mr Gove's comments came ahead of the Conservative Party Conference in Manchester, where Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has vowed to set out his long-term vision for Britain. While it was important that people who could work from home during the Covid lockdowns, Mr Gove said that doing so was not a lifestyle shift. He said that slacking, quiet quitting, all the rest of it is just a way of allowing some people to maintain their quality of life at the expense of others. The levelling up Secretary appeared bullish on the airwaves on Sunday as the Tories appear to be reducing Labour's lead in the polls.
Mr Gove told Sky News on Sunday that he would like to see the tax burden reduced before the next election. The Tories will have presided over at least the biggest set of tax rises since at least the Second World War, between the 2019 general election and the next election, according to analysis by the Institute for Fiscal Studies. Although Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has played down the possibility of tax cuts in November's Autumn Statement, he is expected to have a budget before the next election, a date that is expected in 2024. Gove said the focus should be on reducing taxes on work such as income tax or national insurance. He said that we should stop sneezes and have confidence in our ability to do things right.