Clause 22 - Employment tribunals
Employment Bill
11:15 am
Mr Philip Hammond (Runnymede and Weybridge, Conservative)
Amendment No. 12 deals with clause 22 and amendment No. 21 deals with the mirror-image issue in clause 23. Both address the problem—I shall call it that for the moment—of representatives who are not paid for their services. In earlier debates, we discussed the possibility of breaking down the distinction between paid and unpaid representatives. However, the Minister has made it clear that the Government intend to maintain that distinction, and we must accept their decision.
The amendments would give the tribunal an additional power. As well as being able to award costs and expenses against paid representatives, it would have the power effectively to disbar any representative, paid or unpaid, who was conducting themselves in a manner specified in regulations—probably a vexatious, inappropriate or abusive manner. The tribunal could say to that person, whether they were a CAB adviser, trade union rep or lawyer, ''You will not appear before employment tribunals or employment appeals tribunals for a specified period of time as a result of your conduct in this case.''
If the Minister is serious about rooting out abuse of procedure by representatives, that would be a sensible approach. It is not prescriptive. We are talking about an additional power to make regulations that would confer an additional power on the tribunal. It would add to the armoury to ensure that representatives who abused procedure could not do so repeatedly, holding up the tribunal and creating unnecessary stress in the system.
I hope that the Minister will seriously consider my suggestion. Even if he has to say that the drafting is not perfect, I should be interested to hear what he has to say about the substance of the idea behind the amendment.