Are we turning the clock back on employee rights?

It has be widely reported that George Osborne intends to canvass opinion on whether to remove the right for employees of our smallest businesses (his words) to bring a claim for unfair dismissal.  The suggestion will presumably go out to consultation.  However, given that he made the announcement at an EEF dinner on 6 March and invited contributions from the employer representatives to counter the inevitable trade union representations, you might wonder just how balanced any "consultation" exercise will be and how unbiased the Government will be in its consideration of the responses.  By way of example, in the recent consultation relating to the increase in the minimum qualifying period for the right to claim unfair dismissal from one year to two years (for employees starting new employment on or after 6 April 2012), there were over 400 responses to the consultation.  Most businesses welcomed the increase in the unfair dismissal qualifying period, but overall the majority of respondents disagreed with the proposal.  Given this background, you might reasonably view any future consultations with suspicion.  But would the proposal to remove unfair dismissal protection for employees of the smallest businesses be a good thing?  Clearly no one wants a small enterprise to be run out of business by an individual ex-employee, but why should an employee of a small business have less statutory protection than an employee of a medium-sized or large business?  It is already relatively easy to dismiss an employee fairly if the employer has a potentially fair reason to dismiss and acts reasonably in all the circumstances.  Also, as mentioned above, the qualifying period to even bring a claim for unfair dismissal is extending quite considerably as well.  Is the need to stimulate economic growth being used as a smokescreen for the removal of hard won employee rights?  Is George simply creating new problems for employers as employees look to the Equality Act for a remedy if the right not to be unfairly dismissal is denied to them?  There will always be a conflict between the needs of business and employee rights, but it is possible that the pendulum is swinging too far in favour of employers.