Clause 25 - Power to delegate prescription of forms etc.
Employment Bill
6:30 pm
Mr Philip Hammond (Runnymede and Weybridge, Conservative)
Several organisations have raised the issue of formalisation of tribunal proceedings. There is tension between the natural tendency to define in legislation how procedures are to be carried out and the general thrust of the Leggatt review that we should try to resist the tendency of tribunals to become more like courts and, thus, a source of substantial income for lawyers and substantial costs for the rest of us. What does the Minister think about the charge that creating prescriptive formats for forms, as the Bill does, is part of the process, which he rightly seeks to resist, of making tribunals more formal, more like courts and more difficult to navigate for those who are not represented?