Restrictions on evening and weekend working hours for teenagers could be relaxed under new proposals aimed at saving summer jobs and supporting seasonal businesses across the Yorkshire Coast.
Employment rules for teenagers could face a significant overhaul to help tourism and hospitality businesses recruit seasonal staff more easily.
Current regulations restrict fifteen and sixteen-year-olds to a maximum of thirty-five hours of work a week during school holidays. This legal framework includes a maximum of eight hours on weekdays and Saturdays, alongside a strict two-hour limit on Sundays.
These restrictions would be heavily relaxed under new Conservative Party proposals backed by Filey's Member of Parliament, Kevin Hollinrake.
The plans would lift the two-hour Sunday working limit for under-sixteens and allow them to work until 9pm. Furthermore, young people in full-time education or training would be permitted to work until midnight on Fridays and Saturdays during term-time, and without any time restrictions during school holidays.
The mandatory forty-eight consecutive hours off work in any seven-day period would also be reduced to twenty-four hours to give young people more flexibility over shift patterns and breaks.
Mr Hollinrake, who also represents Thirsk and Malton and serves as Chairman of the Conservative Party, believes scrapping outdated regulations inherited from the European Union will give young people more freedom and simplify evening work restrictions:
"My first job was as a milk boy at the age of seven, so I know from personal experience how much a young person can learn from having a job and being given that first opportunity.
Those early jobs teach you things you simply cannot learn in a classroom alone – how to turn up on time, work hard, take responsibility and deal with customers and colleagues. They can also give young people the confidence to take their next step.
That matters particularly in a constituency like ours, where so many local businesses rely on young people during the summer months. From our pubs, restaurants and shops to the many businesses supporting our tourism industry, seasonal staff are vital.
We need to make it easier, not harder, for those businesses to give young people their first step onto the career ladder."
Significant support is already in place to help young people into employment, according to the current Government.
Speaking to the Local Democracy Reporting Service last month, Scarborough and Whitby MP Alison Hume said:
"We have the Youth Guarantee, and if they don’t have work after 18 months, we’ll support them and pay for them.
"We do need to break down that feeling that going into the Jobcentre is somehow a bad thing and it’s all about getting your benefits cut.
"We want to see the Jobcentres and their job coaches working really hard to help people into work."
Financial incentives for businesses employing younger staff are also currently available to help boost recruitment.
During a visit to Scarborough in July, the then-Minister for Employment, Dame Diana Johnson, said:
"For young people under 21, if an employer like a pub landlord takes on some young people to serve in the pub, they’re not paying National Insurance for those young people."
Despite these existing measures, the Conservative Party Chairman argues that unnecessary red tape and permits required for businesses to employ young people must be scrapped while still protecting young people’s education.
Kevin Hollinrake added:
"A summer job should be an opportunity – for a young person to earn some money, gain valuable experience and build confidence, and for a local business to invest in the next generation. We should be doing everything we can to protect that opportunity."
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