Next boss Lord Wolfson has warned that the government’s plans to update the UK’s employment laws risks leaving companies “chronically overstaffed”.

The chief executive said that plans to ban zero-hour contracts and introduce guaranteed number of minimum weekly hours would be a “wrecking ball” to part-time contracts.

Under the government’s proposed reforms, zero-hours contracts will be replaced by so-called low-hour contracts which Wolfson has raised concerns that the term has not yet been defined.

Wolfson, who is a Conservative peer, has put forward an amendment in the House of Lords to define low hours as eight a week, The Telegraph reported.

“To push that number higher would be to take a wrecking ball to the part-time working practices of millions of people in shops, restaurants, care homes, pubs and many other consumer-facing businesses, which, by their nature, have peaks and troughs in demand,” he said during a House of Lords debate on Monday.

“If an employer successfully implements a system, they will have to offer contracts regardless of whether there is any work for those people going forward.

Wolfson said that many restaurants, shops and pubs “simply cannot afford” to have the same number of people working in February as they have in December.

“Nor can we take the risk that the extra hours required to cover many different seasonal peaks and sale events become permanent costs for the rest of the year,” he added.

Lord Wolfson stated that Next, which employs around...

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