Clause 28 - Pre-hearing reviews
Employment Bill
9:45 am
Mr Philip Hammond (Runnymede and Weybridge, Conservative)
The hon. Gentleman is right. Perhaps he should not anticipate, because I was not going to mention that point and we are now all looking forward to him making a short speech about it when I sit down. His point does not relate to the thrust of the amendment, but it is interesting. It takes us back to an aspect of the conciliation issue that we touched on at our previous sitting, which you will be disappointed to have missed, Mr. Benton—[Interruption.] I see that not all Labour Members agree, although I have found our proceedings riveting. There may be a reason for that, but we can discuss it another time.
We discussed the extent to which documents needed to be discovered at the beginning of the conciliation process. The hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare (Brian Cotter) mentioned discovery in the context of a pre-hearing review, and he will want to explore that further.
The amendment may not be perfectly drafted, but will the Minister confirm that it raises an issue with which we must deal? Will he confirm that there will be a power to strike out a case on review and tell us how that power will be delivered? Will it come through regulations or does it exist elsewhere, in which case I have simply missed it? Will the Minister also give us an estimation of the basis for striking out a case? Will regulations set out the type of cases that can be struck out or will the tribunal be left with a large degree of discretion?
To give the Committee an understanding of the real issue, will the Minister tell us what estimates he has made of the likely number of cases that will be struck out as a result of pre-hearing reviews? Does he expect 5 per cent., 10 per cent. or 20 per cent. of cases to be struck out? The Committee would see the matter quite differently if the figure was 0.25 per cent., not 25 per cent.
I look forward to the Minister's comments and to returning to some of the issues once we have had the benefit of his words of wisdom.