Clause 24 - Conciliation
Employment Bill
5:45 pm
Mr Philip Hammond (Runnymede and Weybridge, Conservative)
The amendments seek to do several specific things. Subsection (1) allows the fixing of a time and place for a hearing to be postponed. Amendment No. 34 would insert the concept that such a postponement should be fixed. That is not to say that it should not be subject to later extension but that it should fixed when it is introduced. Employers have expressed concern—although I have no doubt that people on both sides will be concerned—that unscrupulous parties may seek to delay proceedings coming to a tribunal when there is no reason to do so. For that reason, I hope that the Minister will be persuaded by the amendments or tell us that it was always his intention for regulations to provide that a fixed period, rather than a general, indefinite postponement, should be allocated for conciliation. Any attempt to conciliate before reaching a tribunal is obviously positive, and no one would disagree with trying to encourage a conciliated settlement whenever it is possible. The amendment would ensure that postponement for conciliation does not become a mechanism for serial slippage.
Amendment No. 26 would define the fixed period as a period ''not exceeding three months''. The Minister could provide in regulations for the appropriate period allowed for conciliation, or delegate the power to the tribunal or conciliation officer, but the period should not be longer than three months. To avoid the measure becoming a mechanism for slippage in bringing cases to tribunal, we must ensure that the initial period is relatively short. I am open-minded about whether three months is the right period, and I would like to explore with the Minister the concept of imposing a maximum delay limit.
Amendment No. 35 would allow for an extension of the fixed period if the tribunal orders it. We are working somewhat in the dark, because we do not know what the regulations will propose. Will the tribunal decide to postpone the hearing for conciliation—hopefully for a fixed period—or will there be a general presumption of a period of postponement? In framing the amendment, we did not know whether the decision to grant a postponement extension would return to the tribunal or whether the tribunal would be involved actively for the first time in granting a fixed and generally applied extension. Perhaps the Minister will tell us how the regulations will work.
To summarise, the amendments provide that the period of postponement for conciliation is fixed, short and can be extended only with reference to the tribunal.
Amendments Nos. 32 and 34 deal with a slightly different point. Amendment No. 32 would leave out subsection (3)(a), which gives the Minister the power to provide for exceptions to the general rule that the conciliation officer should be sent notice of tribunal proceedings. It is a probing amendment. I am not suggesting that cases should not be excepted from that general rule, but it is important that we understand what the Minister has in mind as exceptions and that he makes a case for discriminating against or in favour of—whichever way we consider it—a certain class of cases.
Amendment No. 33 would leave out paragraph (b). Those hon. Members who have been involved in Committee work with me in the past, of whom I count you as one, Mr. Amess, know that I am not entirely disinterested in semantics. Paragraph (b) seems to deal with a very semantic point, and I cannot understand what it is designed to achieve. The Employment Tribunals Act 1996 requires parties to be notified
''that the services of a conciliation officer are available to them''.
For those words, paragraph (b) substitutes
''of the availability to them of the services of a conciliation officer''.
I pored over that provision with my finest-toothed comb, seeking to establish the substantive difference that it will make, on which Parliament's time is being spent. However, I came to the conclusion that it will not make one iota of difference to the operation of the 1996 Act.
It was impressed on me early in my parliamentary career that the first principle of drafting legislation is economy. We must never do anything that does not need to be done and we should not use three words where two will do—I must admit that I do not always apply that rule to my speeches.