Wide-ranging employment shake up may cut red tape but advisers doubt core reform claims. Sofia Lind reports

Does making it easier to fire staff make companies any more likely to hire them in the first place? This debate, which has raged for years without resolution, lies at the heart of a wide-ranging and controversial shake-up of employment law announced by the Government last week.

As such, the proposals hold few surprises. There has been intense lobbying by business groups to water down employment law since the coalition Government was elected last year and many of the measures had been previously floated. Notably, a recent report by venture capitalist Adrian Beecroft, which was commissioned by the Conservative Party, floated the introduction of so-called compensated no fault dismissals – which would allow companies the right to cut staff without 
giving reasons.