NEWSAGENTS could stop employing delivery boys and girls if Britain is forced by European laws to give them four weeks paid holiday a year, it was claimed today.

Paul Brierley, spokesman for Bolton North East Conservatives, is horrified at the prospect that youngsters doing paper rounds might be entitled to the same rights as adult shop assistants.

He warned that the extra expense would mean the loss of the pocket money jobs and the collapse of home newspaper deliveries.

Mr Brierley, who has a newsagent's shop, said his business would be faced with crippling costs of up to £500 a year if he had to give his eight paper boys and girls paid holidays.

"It's crazy," said Mr Brierley. "The extra cost has to be covered and the only way to do that is to pass it on to the customer.

"But we all know how sensitive customers are about delivery charges. They just won't buy it. The only way I can see it going is the end of deliveries."

He slammed the Government for not spotting the implications of the European Union move earlier.

"We take it for granted that on a cold morning when we get up, the paper is on the mat and the milk at the door. It's only when traditions like this are threatened that we begin to appreciate them."

He said the work ethic instilled in children who deliver papers for pocket money would be destroyed.

"The boys and girls who deliver papers are more likely to get work after leaving school.

"They are used to working and earning their keep. It gets them used to getting up early and getting to work. All that will go if deliveries are stopped."

Confusion

However, Trade Secretary Stephen Byers said he was determined that the EU regulations would not cover youngsters in Britain.

Tory spokesman John Redwood blamed the confusion on the speed with which the new law was "rushed on to the statute book by the Labour Government, keen to prove its pro-European credentials".

A DTI spokesman said the directive only applied to newspaper deliverers over the age of 17 and the use of such employees was very rare.

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