Clause 22 - Employment Tribunals
Employment Bill
4:30 pm
Mr Philip Hammond (Runnymede and Weybridge, Conservative)
I am flattered that the Minister would be prepared to swap me for the hon. Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Mr. Marsden), but I am not sure that I would accept that transaction.
The PLP brief poses a series of questions and answers—a simple form that Government Back Benchers can understand. It asks:
''Q—Why did the Government drop charging on employment tribunals from the Bill?
A—There was a strong consensus against charging from both employer and employee representatives during the consultation period.''
The Government did not complete the consultation process before they dropped charging. There was not a ''strong consensus'' against charging among employer and employee representatives. Employer representatives welcomed the original Government announcement that they would introduce charging. That seemed sensible, and the Minister said:
''Charging a modest amount would bring a faster and more customer-focused service and also raise funding for improvements in the tribunal and conciliation process. At least a quarter of all tribunal applications which come from those who are on benefits or in genuine need will be exempt from any charges. These people will still have access to justice.''
The decision to drop charging was somewhat surprising, and produced a fair degree of ridicule, even in the generally pro-Government press. On 5 September, The Guardian said:
''Tony Blair has sanctioned his first political retreat since the election by bowing to union opposition and dropping plans to impose charges on applicants to employment tribunals . . . The climbdown is understood to have been made by the industry secretary, Patricia Hewitt, with the prime minister's personal agreement in the past few days.''
It goes on rather enlighteningly to say:
''The issue was threatening to engulf Mr. Blair and Ms Hewitt who are due to speak at the TUC conference in Brighton next week.''
The Government were willing to back down on a proposal that they had strongly defended and previously had said was predicted to save British business as much as £70 million in litigation costs. They were prepared to do that before hearing everything that people had to say during the consultation process. That is an additional stealth tax of £70 million imposed on British business by the Government.
The amendment seeks to put back in the Bill not a requirement to introduce charging, but a power for the Minister to do so if his original instincts were right and if the other measures in the Bill, largely welcome though they are, do not manage to slow down the seemingly inexorable rise in tribunal applications. What targets has the Minister set on that? If he does not meet them he will need additional means at his disposal. The amendment offers him just such an additional means. It is not a silly or extreme idea, but one that the Minister himself has strongly defended and which the Government originally put forward as a key part of their proposals.
The Opposition suspect that the proposal to introduce charging has not been dropped because of any flaw in the logic or because it is unworkable, but simply because of pressure from one interest group and because it provided the potential for serious embarrassment to the Prime Minister at a time when he wanted to generate harmonious relations with the TUC and hoped to have a successful appearance at the TUC conference. That is not the best way of delivering good legislation and good government. I hope that the Minister will have the good grace to tell us that he does not have an objection in principle to charging and that he would welcome the inclusion of this provision in the Bill, so that if all else fails—I know that it is not now his first choice—he has this additional weapon to draw upon in his armoury.