Business body the Institute of Directors (IoD) has called on the government to reverse the previous Labour administration's decision to grant employees time off work for supplementary training.
In its submission to the coalition's recent public consultation on the issue, the organisation described the legislation as "spectacularly bad" and urged the Conservative-Liberal Democrat alliance to prove its commerce-friendly credentials.
"Time to train won't just fail to work as planned – it will wreak considerable damage, as it undermines existing good practice in the planning and delivery of workplace training," said IoD regulatory affairs head Alexander Ehmann.
He claimed the financial cost of implementing the regulations had been underestimated by Labour and insisted little investigation into existing training provisions had been carried out prior to embarking on "legislative intervention".
The TUC disagreed strongly with the IoD's assessment and warned that unskilled workers are likely to be hit hardest if the time to train rules are scrapped.
