I've said it before and I'll say it again. I fully understand why 95 per cent of business owners say they wouldn't start a business in today's small business-hostile, over-regulated madness.

I have to come back to it because as well as implementing the minimum wage and the working-time directive (nothing wrong with the principle but have you seen the paperwork?) I now have to come to terms with the new parental leave concept.

Now I will be unpopular when I say I fail to understand why an employer has to support any employee who decides to start a family.

It's a choice thing and I don't support employees who decide to learn hang gliding or woodwork and other "private" interests.

However, the law is what it is and I fully understand that big companies need to co-operate because of their large female workforce. They can probably also manage the cover if staff do opt for this three months leave. But a small business? Three out of five of my directors are parents. Two out of six of my senior managers. They don't do duplicated work - each is a specialist, hired as such and paid as such. So what am I supposed to do if they decide to exercise their rights - tell the client to go away for three months?

When I was on the Question Time Panel four years ago when this idea was first mooted by Brussels, a bright spark in the audience suggested I should hire off the dole to provide cover.

But apart from the impossibility of training someone to a specialist level in less than five years, I couldn't then get rid because of the unfair dismissal regulations. So is it any wonder I wouldn't start JDA again?

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.