New Forest West MP Sir Desmond Swayne gets behind four-day working week

INTRODUCING a four-day working week may help get more people back to work after the pandemic, New Forest West MP Sir Desmond Swayne has suggested.

He spoke out on his website amid reports a six-month trial by some companies of a shorter working week is due to take place later this year.

But the Conservative backbencher warned workers doing less time for the same pay would be "economic suicide" unless there was "greater productivity in the worked hours".

Currently there are about 1-million fewer workers at work despite unemployment numbers being back to pre-pandemic levels and the MP questioned if the experience of lockdown and furlough left workers "disinclined to return to the stress of the workplace".

He also questioned: "Might a shorter working week tempt them back to work?"

Sir Desmond said he believed a shorter working week "will not suit many enterprises", although others "could cope well".

"In 1976 I worked in a factory that operated a three-day week. Initially they had been forced to do so, as everyone had, during the Miners' Strike of 1973-4.

"When the strike was over and the five-day week was restored however, this particular company – having discovered just how much more productive they had become during the national emergency measure – carried on with just the 3 days working."

Of the overall idea he concluded: "I am sceptical because my experience was of a manufacturing unit. I'm not convinced that the model will work for our largely service-based economy, but if firms are willing to experiment, the results may be interesting.

"Of one thing I’m certain however, it certainly wouldn’t work in the Commons."