Queen's Speech 2015: EU referendum, tax freeze and right-to-buy

From the sectionUK Politics


An EU referendum by the end of 2017 is among a packed programme of new laws in the first Conservative-only Queen's Speech in nearly two decades.

It also includes more free childcare, an income tax freeze and the right-to-buy for housing association tenants.

David Cameron said the 26-bill package was a "programme for working people" that would create full employment and "bring our country together".

The measures were unveiled by the Queen amid the usual pomp and ceremony.

The proposed legislation includes:
A ban on income tax, VAT and national insurance increases for five years
30 hours free childcare a week for three and four-year-olds by 2017
Cutting the total amount one household can claim in benefits from £26,000 to £23,000
More devolution for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and "English votes for English laws" at Westminster
500 more free schools and more failing and "coasting" schools turned into Academies
A ban on so-called legal highs
A "truly seven day" NHS by 2020
Here is a bill-by-bill rundown of the full programme
Follow all the action and the reaction in text and video on Politics Live

Many of the proposed new laws were promised by the Conservatives during the general election campaign.

But Mr Cameron will be able to press ahead with plans previously blocked by the Liberal Democrats after winning an overall majority on 7 May.

These include an Investigatory Powers Bill to give intelligence agencies new tools to target internet data, dubbed a "snooper's charter" by critics.

But the prime minister has delayed plans to scrap the Human Rights Act to avoid a potential confrontation with his own backbenchers. Instead, the government will bring forward proposals for a British Bill of Rights to replace the Human Rights Act, with legislation expected following consultation later in the parliament.

There was no mention in the speech of a promised free Commons vote on repealing the fox hunting ban, but environment secretary Liz Truss said the vote would happen by 2020.

Mr Cameron's flagship policy of giving 1.3 million housing association tenants in England the right to buy their homes at a discount, was in the Queen's Speech.

Another key priority for the new government is Chancellor George Osborne's Northern Powerhouse plan, with a bill paving the way for HS2 and another piece of legislation enabling cities to bid for an elected mayor, with more powers over transport, planning, policing and health.

There is also a Trade Unions Bill, imposing a 50% turnout threshold on strike ballots, with a further requirement in essential public services for strikes to be supported by 40% of those entitled to vote.

Reading out the speech, which is prepared for her by the government, from her throne in the House of Lords, Her Majesty said: "My government will legislate in the interests of everyone in the country.

"It will adopt a one nation approach, helping working people get on, supporting aspiration, giving new opportunities to the disadvantaged and bringing different parts of our country together."

Mr Cameron described his first legislative programme as the head of a Conservative government as an agenda for "working people," with three million more apprenticeships promised over the next five years and a new law to ensure the minimum wage remains tax free.

"There should be a job for everyone who wants one - in other words, full employment," said the prime minister in his introduction to the Queen's Speech.

He said that after the British economy was hauled back from the brink of disaster in 2010, the UK now stands "on the brink of something special".
'Bold first step'

"We have a golden opportunity to renew the idea that working people are backed in this country; to renew the promise to those least fortunate that they will have the opportunity for a brighter future; and to renew the ties that bind every part of our United Kingdom.

"We now have the mandate to deliver that renewal. And it starts with this Queen's Speech."

He described the programme as "the bold first step of a One Nation government," which would create a Britain whose people could "get a decent job, have a good education, buy a home of your own, have dignity when you retire and feel safe and secure throughout your life".

But Lib Dem leader and former deputy prime minister Nick Clegg accused Mr Cameron of abandoning the "liberal stance" espoused by the previous coalition government.

Harriet Harman, Labour's acting leader, said the Conservatives wanted to "set the nations of the country against each other" and threaten "basic rights at work".

The SNP said the Scotland Bill, would be a test of Westminster's "good faith" towards the Smith Commission, the cross-party group which recommended more powers for Holyrood, such as setting income tax rates and controlling a share of VAT.
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Strong Business Aircraft Growth Ahead In Africa

http://www.africabusinessforum.com/2015/05/20/strong-business-aircraft-growth-ahead-in-africa/



“Without data, you have nothing. There has been a distinct lack of data about Africa.” – Tarek Ragheb, AfBAA founding chairman


The African Business Aircraft Association (Booth A065) has released its first data-driven report that describes the state of business aviation in Africa and what association members believe needs to be accomplished to foster future growth.

The report is the product of research compiled by Jetnet (Booth Y077), the Utica, New York, aircraft market intelligence firm, including an online survey in which 84 respondents participated.

Survey respondents said their the top five priorities for business aviation in Africa are (1) training and skills development, (2) enhanced safety and security, (3) infrastructure improvements, (4) reduced taxes and fees and (5) improved airspace/airport access, according to Jetnet iQ market research.

“Without data, you have nothing. There has been a distinct lack of data about Africa. Jetnet, though, has been a believer in AfBAA from Day 1,” says Tarek Ragheb, AfBAA founding chairman. “We’re off to a great start and it [the data base] is going to get better every year.”

Two groups participated in the survey. Business aircraft owners and operators, including aircraft management and charter firms, make up the first group. FBOs, MROs, flight planning and flight services, brokers, financing companies, insurance firms, government agencies and aviation trade associations are in the second group. Four-fifths of those respondents are based in Africa. The other stakeholders have aviation business interests in Africa.

There are close to 450 turbofan business aircraft and nearly 800 turboprops based in Africa. “We looked at operators’ origins and destinations. We found that 72% of operations are inside Africa, 18% are between Africa and the Middle East and 6% are between Africa and Europe.” The average age of the African business aircraft fleet is 19.5 years, the oldest of any region monitored by Jetnet.

However, GDP grew 5.1% per year in Africa from 2004 to 2013, according to Jetnet. That’s the largest rate of growth of any region in the world. And GDP is forecast to grow at the same 5.1% rate during the next decade.

“There are a lot of bright spots in the African economy. South Africa is booming, there are rich mineral deposits in DRC [Democratic Republic of the Congo] and southwest nations, Nigeria, Zaire and Tanzania have hydrocarbons, Rwanda is developing its human potential.”

While Africa currently has a relatively small number of high net worth individuals, Jetnet research indicates that virtually the same percentage use business aircraft as in the U.S. and North America. This and forecasted economic growth bode well for the future growth of the business aircraft fleet.

Ragheb said he got the idea to start an African business aircraft association three years ago while flying over South Africa aboard a G550. “There was no organization that focused on business aviation there. We found that operators were excited to participate. We’ve grown from nothing to 93 members in three years.”

His personal goals for AfBAA are to foster development of the continent’s business aviation infrastructure, including FBOs and MROs, especially encouraging local airport authorities to make room for GA facilities; to improve pilot, technician and line service training; to expand business aircraft financing availability and to advocate for business aviation in Africa. He believes that business aviation growth in the region will be “a barometer of economic growth.”

Regarding fleet upgrades, Ragheb believes that Pilatus PC-24, Embraer Legacy 500, used Gulfstream V and new Gulfstream 650 aircraft will sell well in Africa.

He may be biased toward Gulfstream models, though, as he was with the Savannah, Georgia, firm from 1995 until 2012, when he retired as senior VP international sales. He was initially hired by Teddy Forstmann when Forstmann-Little owned Gulfstream. Forstmann lured him away from Martin-Marrietta with the promise of a moderate salary, but generous stock options. When Forstmann-Little sold Gulfstream to General Dynamics, Ragheb’s stock options were worth millions.

But Ragheb doesn’t just want to be remembered as a successful Gulfstream sales person. Now he intends to give back to the business aircraft community by investing his time and a considerable amount of his own fortune into AfBAA

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Talooyin Horumarinta Dhaqaaalaha- 2

Waxaad jeceshay ood muddo ku dadaalaysay kolka la helo waa mahad Alle iyo guul. Muddo dheer ayaan ka talinaayey oon ka hawl galay in Zaadka iyo iibsiga suuqu noqdaan lacagta dalkeena. Hanbalyo ayaan leeyahay Wasiirka cusub ee Maaliyadda iyo Bankiga Dhexe ee arrintan muddada taagnayd ku dhaqaaqay.

Waxay wax weyn ka tari doontaa la dagaalanka sicir bararka oo hore aan ugu jirin gacanta xukuumadda. Waxayna karaamadu u soo noqon doontaa lacagteena ajanabiga ku ahayd dalkeeda.

Waxa iyana u baahan wax qabad degdeg ah isku xidhka telefoonada oo lid ku ah suuqa xorta ah iyo ikhtiyaarka macaamiisha. Waana mid muddo dheer taagnayd una baahan dhaqaajin dhab ah. Khasaare weyn ayaa bulshada iyo xukuumaddaba arrintan ugu jira. Ha loo eego danta guud

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N.C. lawmakers move to inject transparency into drug pricing

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Patients in the United States spend more on prescription drugs than in any other nation and twice as much as in the United Kingdom. Prices for some brand-name drugs are more than double the price for the exact same drug in other countries.

Those are findings from a Commonwealth Fund report and now some North Carolina lawmakers hope to inject some transparency into drug pricing in an effort to keep drug costs in check.

The proposal – House Bill 839 – would require pharmaceutical manufacturers to publicly report cost and utilization information.

Poll: Should drug makers publicly report cost and utilization information in North Carolina?

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina, the state’s largest health insurer by far, supports the bill and has long argued that drug prices play a major factor in escalating health care costs. In 2013 alone, Americans spent $263 billion on prescription drugs alone, according to theCenters for Disease Control and Prevention.

North Carolina wouldn’t be alone in this kind of a law. Legislators in California and Massachusetts, for example, have introduced similar bills.

Though the North Carolina bill doesn’t seem to have gained much traction to date, and lawmakers here have other health care issues on their mind, Certificate of Need regulations and Medicaid reform to name just two, a bill like this can at least serve to begin the conversation down a path toward more pricing transparency in pharmaceutical costs.

Jason deBruyn covers the biopharmaceutical and health care industries. Follow him on Twitter @TriBizHealth or @jasondebruyn.

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Talooyin Horumarinta Dhaqaaalaha- 2

Waxaad jeceshay ood muddo ku dadaalaysay kolka la helo waa mahad Alle iyo guul. Muddo dheer ayaan ka talinaayey oon ka hawl galay in Zaadka iyo iibsiga suuqu noqdaan lacagta dalkeena. Hanbalyo ayaan leeyahay Wasiirka cusub ee Maaliyadda iyo Bankiga Dhexe ee arrintan muddada taagnayd ku dhaqaaqay.

Waxay wax weyn ka tari doontaa la dagaalanka sicir bararka oo hore aan ugu jirin gacanta xukuumadda. Waxayna karaamadu u soo noqon doontaa lacagteena ajanabiga ku ahayd dalkeeda.

Waxa iyana u baahan wax qabad degdeg ah isku xidhka telefoonada oo lid ku ah suuqa xorta ah iyo ikhtiyaarka macaamiisha. Waana mid muddo dheer taagnayd una baahan dhaqaajin dhab ah. Khasaare weyn ayaa bulshada iyo xukuumaddaba arrintan ugu jira. Ha loo eego danta guud

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Talooyin Horumarinta Dhaqaalaha -1

Ganacsiga xorta ihi waxuu u baahan yahay suuq xor ah. Xornimada suuqu waxay u baahantay sharciyo iyo hayado ilaaliya . Dhiirigelinta suuq furan oo tartan nidaamsan leh waa furaha horumarka dhaqaale, taas waxa lid ku ah suuq in yar u xidhan oo abuura monopoly. Adeegyada daruuriga ah sida biyaha, gaasta, nalka iwm waxay u baahan yihiin qawaaniin ilaalisa xaqqa muwaadinka iyo in ayna u gacan gelin shakhsiyaad yar. Waxa ugu habboon inay noqdaan shirkado u furan dhammaan muwaadiniinta oo lahaanshahu yahay mid furan oo qof waliba inta uu doono maal gelin karo iyo xiliga uu doono.

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China: Restaurant rewards obese men and thin women

China: Restaurant rewards obese men and thin women

By News from Elsewhere......media reports from around the world, found by BBC Monitoring


A restaurant in China is offering men discounts if they're overweight - but women pay less for being thin, it's been reported.

The Na Huo eatery in Chongqing, south-west China, is trying to attract more customers with promotions based on customers' size, the China Radio International website reports. As a male diner's weight increases, so do the discounts, and if a man weighs more than 140 kg (22 stone) then he eats for free. But it's the opposite for women, who only get their food bill covered if they weigh less than 34.5kg (5st 6lb), the website says. Promotional photos posted on the restaurant's Weibo social media page show diners being weighed with staff looking on. "Na Huo restaurant cares about fat people and thin people. Bring your fat or thin friends, eat for free," it says on the page. A similar gimmick was used by a restaurant in the US city of Las Vegas in 2010, which offered free meals to obese customers. The Heart Attack Grill served up 10,000-calorie burgers, but its owner has since told people to stay away and eat more healthily.

Most Chinese social media users find the idea funny, but one Weibo user is concerned about the rules for female diners: "A weight of 34.5kg or lower is what level of thinness?" Anyone hoping to bulk up - or slim down - to take advantage of the offer doesn't have much time. When 2014 ends, all customers will become equal again, regardless of their size.




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Ethiopia – Doing it the Japanese way

• AFRICAN BUSINESS MAGAZINE

The Japanese workplace philosophy of Kaizen is sweeping all before it in factories and workshops in Ethiopia. The philosophy, developed by Japan after World War II to make the most of meagre resources through efficiency, seems to be a perfect fit for Ethiopia’s industrial needs. James Jeffrey made the rounds of businesses in Addis Ababa to find out how the idea works and with what results.

Inside a dimly lit shed, a projector displayed a PowerPoint presentation onto a hastily rigged sheet of wood. Although the text was in Amharic, the main language of Ethiopia, the ideas behind the bullet points are summed up by one Japanese word: Kaizen. A small group of Ethiopian furniture makers sat and listened intently to the instructor from the Ethiopian Kaizen Institute (EKI), while in the back row a woman scribbled into a notepad.

Kaizen is a Japanese management philosophy that allows companies to continuously improve their productivity and product quality with available resources and without depending on new investment – and it is taking root in Ethiopian business culture.

The Addis Ababa-based EKI was established through a partnership between the Ethiopian government and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), a Japanese governmental agency focused on development through technical cooperation.

JICA has already introduced Kaizen to other African countries although its Japanese staff think Ethiopia can become a Kaizen hub due to its business situation being such a good fit for Kaizen ideas and methodologies. Ethiopian end users seem to be reacting positively to this Japanese business ethic that can trace its lineage back to the birth of Zen Buddhism.

“The workers are involved and can see the changes,” said Dawit Birasa, manager of plans and programmes at Peacock Shoe Factory, an Ethiopian company based in an Addis Ababa industrial zone and which last year embraced Kaizen. “It’s understandable and not complicated, which is a big advantage.”

Between 15th January 2013 and 22nd May 2013, a team of Kaizen consultants from EKI visited the factory 17 times to instruct workers and management on Kaizen and how it can be used to identify bottlenecks in manufacturing processes, develop action plans, provide solutions and evaluate results to instigate further improvements. By the end of May, production of quality men’s and ladies shoes had increased from 500 pairs every eight hours to 800 pairs, many of which are exported across much of Europe.

JICA’s Kaizen programme started in November 2011 and will run until October 2014. In addition to production improvements, reductions to costs and elimination of waste have amounted to savings totalling tens of thousands of dollars for companies involved in JICA’s programme.

Less tangible benefits include attitudes changed for the better, more mutually beneficial relationships between workers and managers, and improved team work and motivation levels starting at the lowest level of workers and continuing upward through a company’s hierarchies. Kaizen emphasises a bottom-up approach.

By the end of its programme, JICA aims to have trained 65 EKI consultants working with 65 large and medium enterprises, and 190 Kaizen train-the-trainers working with 190 micro and small enterprises.

Even if those figures are not met, the establishment of the EKI means that numbers trained by the institute in the future will far exceed JICA’s contribution. Those at JICA wouldn’t have it any other way. “By starting their own training initiatives there will be many more beneficiaries,” said Yuko Ikeda, JICA’s project formulation advisor for private sector development. JICA specialises in capacity building and enabling organisations achieve self-sufficiency – hence JICA programmes always have an end date.

The PowerPoint presentation to the workers at Mesker Metal & Wood PLC was only the third visit to the company by an EKI team. The ramshackle layout inside the compound indicated there was much potential for the sort of business streamlining promulgated by Kaizen. Before the presentation started, the two workers I spoke to didn’t yet seem to understand much about Kaizen, although one of them said he hoped to see workspace improvements.

“The main problem is in the workshop where materials are not accessible and it’s hard to get the right measurements,” said Selamu Bereka, clad in dusty blue overalls. “When we finish, the [cupboards] are not as good as they could be.”

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Exclusive - In virus hunt, Saudi Arabia suspects African camel imports

• 
  

Camels are seen before being exported to Middle East countries, at the loading zone at the sea port in Somalia's capital Mogadishu August 3, 2013.

CREDIT: REUTERS/FEISAL OMAR

(Reuters) - Saudi Arabia suspects a virus that has killed hundreds of people there may have arrived in camels from the Horn of Africa, and could ban such imports until it knows more, the kingdom's chief scientist told Reuters.

Any ban on the camel trade with the region would badly hurt the already fragile economy of Somalia, which is a major livestock exporter to Saudi Arabia.

Tariq Madani, who heads the scientific advisory board of the Saudi health ministry command and control centre (CCC) - set up to handle the outbreak of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome or MERS - said scientists are currently testing camels at sea ports before authorities allow them in.

MERS was first identified in humans in 2012 and is caused by a coronavirus from the same viral family as the one that caused a deadly outbreak of SARS in China in 2003. More than 700 people in Saudi Arabia have contracted it and 292 of them have died, according to latest data from the Saudi health ministry.

"We do have suspicions that the disease may have been imported through camel trade from the Horn of Africa, but we haven't proved it yet," Madani told Reuters in a telephone interview from Jeddah.

He said the final decision on a ban on camel imports from the region lies with the agriculture ministry. Officials there could not be reached for comment but Madani said the ministry "hasn't yet released an official ban for the importation of camels", although colleagues there had told him such a move is "under consideration".

"We have always imported camels from the African Horn.... but we will stop that until we get more information on whether they are infected or not," he said.

Saudi Arabia has previously been criticised for its handling of the MERS outbreak, which public health experts say could have been under control by now if officials and scientists there had been more willing to collaborate on studies into how the virus operates and where it is coming from.

Much more scientific research is needed to nail down the source of the MERS infections in humans and exactly how it makes the leap, but preliminary studies suggest the virus's animal reservoir is likely to be camels.

Viruses frequently jump from animals into people in what are called zoonotic events - and while many of them peter out, some can develop into human epidemics.

"Since this is a zoonotic disease we are collaborating with the ministry of agriculture to answer the question of whether these camels imported from the African Horn are possible sources of infection," Madani said.



LIVESTOCK EXPORTS

Saudi Arabia is by far the biggest market for livestock from Somalia, with at least 70 percent of Somali exports going to the kingdom. The rest go mostly to other Middle East states such as the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Yemen, Qatar and Egypt.

Somalia exported about 4.7 million animals in 2013. Sheep and goats account for roughly 80 percent, followed by camels and some cattle.

Most exports go via two Gulf of Aden ports - Bossaso and Berbera - in two breakaway regions of northern Somalia, but the animals come from all over the country, with some arriving across porous borders with southern Ethiopia and northern Kenya.

Madani said that while Saudi Arabia does have some domestic camels, most of those used for meat and trade are imported from the Horn of Africa.

Lisa Murillo, an expert in virology and affiliate scientist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in the United States, said she had analysed data on human MERS cases in the Middle East and camel imports from the Horn of Africa - and found striking correlations that cry out for further investigation.

As a result of her findings, Murillo says she has developed what she acknowledges is a "very speculative hypothesis" - that the number of MERS cases in Arabian Peninsula countries is related to the number of camels imported into those countries.

"That correlation just leaps off the page," she told Reuters in a telephone interview.

"The most important thing we need to be doing right now - outside of Saudi Arabia and the UAE - is looking for human and camel cases of MERS in the Horn of Africa - particularly in the ports of Somalia," she said. "If it turns out to be in camels there, why wouldn't it be in humans there as well?"

Madani said teams of scientists working under his leadership at the CCC were doing exactly that in Saudi.

"As we speak we are doing a study on camels imported from the Horn of Africa," he said. "We are taking samples from them in the sea ports before they are allowed in, and we're also taking samples from people handling them to test them for antibodies."



STRUGGLING SOMALIA

Murillo said data from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation on national camel stocks in 2012 show there were 7 million camels in Somalia compared with 260,000 in Saudi Arabia.

Experts say that if Saudi Arabia does ban imports from Somalia, it could have a severe impact on a nation struggling to rebuild itself while an Islamist insurgency rages.

A previous Saudi ban on Somali livestock exports in 2000 - the concerns then was rinderpest and Rift Valley fever - hammered the economy before it was lifted in 2009. From 2 million head shipped in 2008, exports jumped to 3 million in 2009 and hit 4.8 million in 2012, according to an EU official.

"It would be very serious, quite devastating," Ernest Njoroge, Somalia programme officer in charge of livestock and fisheries for the European Union. "In the year 2000, there was a total ban of the livestock and that was very very devastating."

Some African traders grumble that exports are already looking weak in 2014, although the peak export season is only just starting.

Most shipments are made before the Muslim holidays of Eid el-Fitr - at the end of the fasting month of Ramadan which begins this coming weekend - and Eid al-Adha which follows a few weeks later.

Njoroge said it would become clear how the trade is doing only in about October or November.

"Most Somalis depend on livestock and when there is no export there is an economic crisis, particularly for the pastoralists and traders," said Ahmed Hussein, a livestock trader speaking to Reuters by telephone from Baladweyne, a town in central Somalia. He said business was slow.

"When livestock is exported there is circulation of money. Now since there is no export, the livestock price is down locally," he added.

Abdisalan Omar, a restaurant owner in Mogadishu, said male camels for export can sell for $700 to $900 (411-528 pounds), but go for $400 to $500 when sold for domestic consumption.





(Additional reporting by Edmund Blair in Nairobi, Abdi Sheikh in Mogadishu and Angus McDowall in Riyadh; Editing by Simon Robinson and David Stamp)

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$2bn fund to drive growth in Muslim world

$2bn fund to drive growth in Muslim world




Ahmad Mohamed Ali, president of the IDB Group.


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A $2 billion Islamic Development Bank Infrastructure Fund II (known as the “IDB Fund II“) was launched on the occasion of the bank’s 40th anniversary, said Ahmad Mohamed Ali, president of the IDB Group.
The IDB Fund II is the largest private equity infrastructure fund dedicated to the 56-member countries of the IDB. The bank’s board of governors has reappointed Ali as its president for the next five years.
The IDB Fund II is supported by the Public Pension Agency of Saudi Arabia, the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia, the Ministry of Finance of Bahrain and the Ministry of Finance of Brunei Darussalam as founding investors, with aggregate commitments totaling nearly $750 million for the first closing. A final closing with additional investors is targeted for early 2015.
The fund will have a broad sectorial focus beyond the core infrastructure sectors of power, telecommunications and transportation and will include investment in oil and gas, refinery and petrochemicals, steel and aluminum, mining, logistics and an allocation for health care, education and financial services.
The IDB Fund II is the successor to the $730 million IDB Infrastructure Fund I (the IDB Fund I), also supported by the founding investors, which achieved an IRR of 18 percent and an investment multiple of 1.7 times across signature projects such as AirAsia in Malaysia, the Saudi International Petrochemical Company (Sipchem) in Saudi Arabia and AES Oasis Ltd., with power assets in Pakistan, Oman and Jordan.
“Building on the successful track record of IDB Fund I, the IDB and founding investors are nearly tripling the size of the IDB Fund II to $2 billion,” said Ali. “The fund will mobilize up to $24 billion of aggregate financing to support the development of key infrastructure projects in IDB member countries.”


IDB and the founding investors have established ASMA Capital Partners, based in Bahrain, as a multi-fund asset management platform to manage the IDB Fund II.
The chairman of ASMA Capital is the president of the IDB Group and the vice chairman is Mohammed Al-Kharashi, governor of the Public Pension Agency of Saudi Arabia. Members of the board of directors are Abdullah Al-Ayadhi, representing the Public Investment Fund (KSA), and Sami Humaid, representing Bahrain’s finance ministry.
Mohammed Al-Kharashi said: “ASMA Capital is expected to play a significant role in assisting pension funds and other global investors seeking to deploy capital into infrastructure projects in select emerging markets for portfolio diversification and stable return.”



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Could work emails be banned after 6pm?

Could work emails be banned after 6pm?

By Tom de CastellaBBC News Magazine


In today's Magazine
A shark cull divides a nation
What's lurking inside the Bank of England's vaults?
A rusting revolutionary hero
A watch for blind people

France has brought in rules to protect employees from work email disturbing them outside office hours. Would a law to this effect be feasible elsewhere?

You're reclining on the beach admiring the surf when your phone goes beep. You've got mail. From your boss.

In many jobs, work email doesn't stop when the employee leaves the office. And now France has decided to act. It has introduced rules to protect about a million people working in the digital and consultancy sectors from work email outside office hours. Those are taken to be before 9am and after 6pm. The deal signed between employers federations and unions says that employees will have to switch off work phones and avoid looking at work email, while firms cannot pressure staff to check messages.

Michel de La Force, chairman of the General Confederation of Managers, has said that "digital working time" would have to be measured. Some emailing outside of office hours would be allowed but only in "exceptional circumstances".

France has a 35-hour week, adopted in 1998. But the French are not alone in worrying about how portable devices have exposed employees to longer hours.
French workers protest in the streets of Paris in March 2014

In December 2011, Volkswagen announced that servers would stop sending emails 30 minutes after the end of employees' shifts, and onlystart again half an hour before the person returned to work. Their move was followed by Germany's labour ministry.

In the UK there is protection for many types of worker in the form of the Working Time Regulations, but the TUC argues this simply doesn't cover out-of-hours email. And there are exemptions for categories of worker like lawyers and doctors.
UK working hours

Employers can't force adults to work more than 48 hours a week - normally averaged over 17 weeks.

Exceptions apply:
Where the working time is not measured and the worker is in control - eg managing executives
In the armed forces, emergency services and police - in some circumstances
In security and surveillance
As a domestic servant in a private household
Where 24-hour staffing is required
Certain categories of seafarers, sea-fishermen and workers on vessels on inland waterways

Workers can opt out of the 48-hour week.
More from GOV.UK

If an out-of-hours email ban was brought in, the situation could be similar and not everybody would be protected, says Andrew Lilley, an employment lawyer and managing partner at law firm Travers Smith. "I imagine many jobs would be exempt, a bit like some of the exemptions in the Working Time Regulations."

Disruptive email is mainly a white-collar problem. It goes with the territory for certain jobs, such as lawyer or financier, where staff are managing their own time. But others further down the hierarchy working on fixed hours contracts are perhaps also in need of protection.

Technology has redrawn the working day. Woody Allen's 1972 film Play It Again Sam contains a running gag about a workaholic businessman. Played by Tony Roberts he begins every scene by phoning the office to give the telephone number where he can be reached and for how long, followed by the next contact number. He was the exception - workers used to be able to disappear. Today anyone with a smartphone is usually reachable.

Open all hours in the US

An advertising professional who moved from London to New York describes a different email culture.

"I remember on my second day seeing an email from a work colleague sent very late that evening. To my surprise someone replied to it, and then the interaction continued online. And lo and behold we 'were working'. By contrast, in the UK, if I worked late I would often draft emails but save them in my inbox and send them first thing the next morning. That now seems ridiculous and archaic to me. Emails are constant here. It's not that they expect you to answer out of office hours. More that everyone is 'switched on' all the time - that's the culture and pace of New York. I never really heard the concept of work/life balance when I got to the US. There wasn't much complaining as people's expectations were different. It's not just in the corporate world. When my family were moving here and trying to get an apartment I remember being surprised and delighted that our realtor was calling and emailing us late on a Saturday night."

Michael Reid, an IT teacher at a Liverpool comprehensive, says his evenings are regularly interrupted. "An email arrives at 11.45pm and you know a colleague is working late and you want to support them." When he sees it in his inbox he is "crestfallen", he says. "It takes the joy out of what you are doing."

An advertising consultant in London, who wants to remain anonymous, says she is expected to respond to emails. Many come through between 18:00 and 22:00. "Needless to say not all emails require an immediate response though if I'm to tell which do and don't, I do need to check them." Requests for information she accepts as part of the job. Others - "can I remind you of X" or invitations to meetings with no context - drive her "nuts", she says. She now switches her phone off when she goes to bed to ensure an uninterrupted night's sleep.

Enforcing an email ban would be almost impossible, argues Alief Rezza, an oil analyst in Stavanger, Norway. He checks email every half hour when he leaves work at 16:30 until 19:00. The stock market is still open and he might get an urgent message from colleagues in London. When he wakes he checks to see if colleagues in the US or Singapore have been in touch. "I don't think a ban would work. If Norway bans my company from sending emails to me then my company needs to make sure someone is able to cover the request that should have been in my inbox." The industry would find a way around it, he argues.


Like many other lawyers, Lilley checks work email every hour or so during the evening and the same on holiday. In the days before smartphones he would receive phone calls. An email is less intrusive, he argues. "The ability to be contactable on email means that a lot of people leave the office earlier than otherwise would be the case." It can be inconvenient of course. "You can't deny there are occasions where you think I'd prefer to finish what I'm doing. I've had to stop working out in the gym to reply to a work email." But if you want to do a certain kind of legal work you have to be willing to be interrupted, he argues. And there is reassurance in knowing that colleagues can get hold of you to check crucial details.

More from the Magazine


In the office we shop, email friends and go to the gym - the only thing we don't do much of is work. Meanwhile, at home we do our work email, take part in conference calls, write reports and have our best ideas, says Lucy Kellaway.
Why did offices become like the home?

Paul Sellers, TUC policy adviser, says the same problem that France is seeking to address exists in the UK. He says people in the law, media, finance and local government are not being allowed to switch off. "Why are we expecting people to work at 8.30 at night?" The Working Time Regulations were drawn up in the 1990s before mobile phones were in wide circulation. The rules have not caught up.

NHS workers are paid to be on call even if they end up not working. "If you're not being paid you're not being valued," Sellers says.

But another view is that leisure and work now increasingly blend into one. The new reality is that people in many creative jobs now combine holidays and working, Financial Times columnist Lucy Kellaway has argued.

A ban on email is not the answer, argues Ksenia Zheltoukhova, research associate at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. It could even hurt workers who increasingly require flexible working - keeping in touch on trains, emailing between time zones and leaving early to look after the children. A better approach is to educate managers about work-life balance and encourage them to prioritise.

For some employees, the problem is not the email itself, but the collateral damage to loved ones. "For me out of hours emails go with the territory," says the advertising consultant. "But my partner does mind." Lilley once thought he'd perfected the discreet glance at the phone during dinner. Now he's not so sure. "I suspect you're more distracted in company than you think you are. It can be very irritating to people around you."




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