A leading financial services recruiter has criticised MP Beverley Hughes' call for all workers to have the right to request flexible working.

Proponents for such proposals "have clearly never worked in a commercial environment", said Tara Ricks, managing director of City-based Joslin Rowe. "If everyone wants to work part-time, what's going to happen?"

Currently, parents of children under the age of six or disabled children under 18 have the right to request flexible working. Hughes argues that all jobs should be advertised as part-time, job-share or flexi-time unless there was a sound business case not to. She has also called for the doubling of paternity leave from the existing two weeks to a month. Maternity and paternity pay should also rise, Hughes says.

Well-intentioned efforts to create "this utopian society" are leading to more onerous employment laws, Ricks told Recruiter. "We've got to recognise how we keep weighing down business."

The UK is "a country of entrepreneurs", she said. "That needs to be considered."

Ricks is chairman of the Forum of Professional Recruiters. While this specific issue is not before the FPR at the moment, Ricks said that with most employment law proposals, "there will be something we need to respond to".

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