Clause 22 - Employment Tribunals
Employment Bill
4:30 pm
Mr Philip Hammond (Runnymede and Weybridge, Conservative)
Welcome to the Chair, Mr. Amess. It is a pleasure to serve under you in a Committee.
We had begun to debate amendment No. 16, which would insert a proposal to charge employment tribunal applicants. The Government originally floated the provision as a key part of tribunal reform, but subsequently dropped it. Rather than waiting to view all the responses to their proposals—the closing date for responses was 8 October—they panicked. In early September, the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister were due to address the Trades Union Congress annual meeting. The Prime Minister avoided that event due to the tragic events of 11 September, but the Secretary of State did not. At that point, the Government coincidentally announced that, in response to consultation, they were withdrawing the proposal to charge. They did not wait for the full completion of the consultative procedure.
Members of the Committee can draw their own conclusions about the pressures that may have been placed on Government to arrive at that decision. It is not true, as the parliamentary Labour party brief says—I am not a subscriber to the PLP but it is often a useful source of information—