For reasons bets known to itself, the government is shelving plans to ensure that workers keep their tips, despite having first promised to do so six years ago.
Paul Scully, the business minister, announced in September that the government would take action to make it illegal for employers to withhold tips from workers. The plan was designed to prevent restaurants from the increasingly common practice of taking a share of tips rather than passing them on to staff.
The idea had been on the back burner since it was first put forward by Sajid Javid when he was business secretary in 2016.
The FT reports that the legislation would have included a requirement for all employers to pass on tips to workers without any deductions. It would also have laid out a statutory code of practice setting out how tips should be distributed to ensure fairness and transparency.
However, the plan has been dropped “for the foreseeable future”, according to one senior government figure. Ministers had hoped to squeeze it into a proposed employment bill but that legislation has been shelved.
This is not so much a sign that government has it in for hospitality staff, but a sign that it can't manage it's legislative schedule (which is bloody disgraceful!)
