Earlier this week the Government announced that from 2015 onwards fathers will be given a year’s leave to care for their new born babies. Very nice indeed for the fathers and their families but what about the businesses that employ those fathers?  I don’t mean large companies or corporations, with plenty of employees to go round, but smaller concerns such as family run businesses with a handful of employees each and every one of whom are vital to the success or failure of the operation.

 It’s all very well the Government issuing these people-pleasing edicts but what about those left to pick up the tab? Depending on which economist you listen to we are either still in or are just coming out of recession so isn’t it vital still that all hands remain firmly at the pump?

This, I’m afraid, is yet another example of government by liberal academics who have no experience of life in the real world and clearly no knowledge of how hard it is to run a business.

Allowing a key member of your company to take a year off because he has become a father may be a very nice humane gesture but it makes no business (or common) sense whatsoever.