Adding new laws to sort out job disputes? It just wouldn't work

That's enough employment law, the Secretary of State for Business said last week. John Hutton challenged "the automatic assumption that the only way to deal with exploitation in the workplace is by passing new laws". In his view, this was like "using a sledgehammer to miss a nut". He told the Fabian Society that it was often more sensible to close loopholes and take stronger enforcement action.

Hutton insisted that a recent deal between the TUC and the CBI, allowing agency workers equal treatment after 12 weeks, was not the start of a new wave of employment regulation, and would not compromise the flexibility of the labour market.

Some unions reacted angrily to the Minister's speech, as he must have intended. Alan Ritchie of the construction union Ucatt said the "mantra of labour-market flexibility" meant ordinary workers being forced into a series of unstable jobs for low wages. But Hutton argued that too many laws would simply drive out jobs.

Perhaps the Minister's best line of all was his acknowledgment of the blindingly obvious: "that it is not possible to legislate prescriptively for everything". Hutton might like to pass that on to his ministerial colleagues at the Home Office, who have taken the view for many years that an annual Criminal Justice Bill is the prescription for all ills.

His own Employment Bill, currently rumbling through Parliament, reminds us all too clearly how legislation can sometimes make things worse.

As the result of a previous Employment Act, workplace disputes have had to go through a three-stage process since October 2004. Disciplinary matters raised by employers and grievances from staff require written notification, a meeting between the two sides and, if appropriate, an appeal.

These procedures "have had unintended consequences which outweigh their benefits", Trade Minister Lord (Digby) Jones admitted in January. Disputes have become formalised, with lawyers getting involved at an earlier stage than before. The Employment Bill will therefore scrap the statutory procedures in their entirety.

Patrick Howarth of Foot Anstey in Plymouth says the employers he acts for, large and small, agree there is too much ill-considered employment law. The solicitor represented a company that checks lamp-posts for corrosion in a recent case brought by one of its former workers, Kieron O'Toole, from Cricklewood.

O'Toole and his partner, Lydia Hyde, had three boisterous children under eight - the youngest, aged two, being particularly difficult to manage. The couple were under so much stress that, early last year, Ms Hyde felt she had to leave the house "for her own sanity".

O'Toole told the company he needed immediate unpaid leave to look after his family. Two weeks later, he found he had lost his job. There was a dispute about whether he had resigned or been sacked. As things turned out, he would not have needed any more than four weeks away.