Clause 23 - Employment Appeal Tribunal
Employment Bill
5:30 pm
Mr Philip Hammond (Runnymede and Weybridge, Conservative)
I have just a couple of questions for the Minister; we have already dealt with many of the substantive issues. Clause 23 amends section 34 of the Employment Tribunals Act 1996, which allows the award of costs or expenses if:
''(a) the proceedings were unnecessary, improper or vexatious, or
(b) there has been unreasonable delay or other unreasonable conduct in bringing or conducting the proceedings.''
The replacement wording in clause 23 says merely:
''Appeal Tribunal procedure rules may include provision for the award of costs or expenses.''
On the face of it, the primary legislation removes the constraint on the circumstances in which costs or expenses can be awarded. What is the practical effect of that? Does the Minister intend to reimpose the limitation by secondary legislation? It is an extremely poor general principle to amend primary legislation to make it more universal and then to reimpose precisely the same restriction by secondary legislation, which can be amended by further secondary legislation. It is a retrograde step. If it is not simply that and the Minister intends that the power will operate in a different way as a result of the change to the wording in the primary legislation, can he explain precisely how it will work?