Here's the situation. On the one hand we're told that agency workers are to get the 'same employment rights' as full time employees; at the same time all full time employees will be granted the right to request flexible working.

It does not take a genius to work out that, over time, this could eliminate any meaningful distinction between different types of employment, and take away a most important tool in business management.

All businesses, but small businesses in particular, rely on being able to operate flexibly.

Let's imagine, for the moment, that you're a manufacturer and supplier of a seasonal niche product to a specialised market.

To keep the price right and still have money to invest in improving your goods, you have a full time staff of 10 ( I picked this number because it's the most that the vast majority of our members employ) and a larger staff on seasonal shorter term contracts.

What would happen to your enterprise if your contract staff suddenly cost the equivalent of a full-timer?

And suppose your full-timers all demanded the right to work flexibly all on the same day? You'd be out of business - and then no one would have a job.

Let's think about it, too, from the point of view of the employees. Many people like contracting to work at times and for periods that suit them; it helps them balance all the other things they want to do in life.

Suppose the only work available was full time or nothing because there was no point in an employer offering anything else?

Now I've exaggerated a little but the fact is that if you take the proposals at face value they are unworkable anywhere except in the largest of operations - and even many of them will feel some pain

My fundamental point, though, is that we don't need this kind of regulation to make us, as business people, do the right thing.

All my members tell me that the job market is tight.

When they find good staff they work hard to keep them. When someone finds a job that suits their life balance they work hard to keep it. When there's a conflict between what the business needs and what the staff want to do they do what human beings have always done - negotiate.

After all there's plenty of general legislation protecting workers' rights to fall back on - but only once the application of common sense and reasonableness has been exhausted.

To be frank, I normally shy away from this kind of issue because I don't want the FSB and its members branded as unwilling to move with the times. We're not. It's just another example of the creation of rules where rules just aren't needed.

The Department for Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (an anomaly in itself, perhaps?) has just published an Enterprise Strategy for the country in which it pledges, not for the first time, to increase, wherever possible, the exemption of small businesses from regulation.

Well, if you want a good place to start, why not start here? Apply these new rules with a light touch in the small business community and trust mutual self-interest and common sense to make it work.