Clause 34 - Procedural fairness in unfair dismissal
Employment Bill
12:15 pm
Mr Brian Cotter (Weston-Super-Mare, Liberal Democrat)
I wish to speak to amendment No. 27. As we know, under current law a tribunal can rule that an employee has been unfairly dismissed on either procedural or substantive grounds. Clause 34(1) changes the conditions relating to procedural fairness. If an employer fails to comply with the minimum statutory procedures, the tribunal will automatically find that the employee has been unfairly dismissed. However, clause 34 seems to go far beyond achieving that aim by excluding the possibility that a dismissal could be substantively unfair even where it is not procedurally unfair. For example, a person could be dismissed on a very minor ground such as turning up for work a minute late.
Amendment No. 27 is designed to tighten up the clause by limiting its impact to the circumstances in which it appears it was intended to apply. Under the amendment, dismissals could be deemed unfair for other reasons, even if they were found to be procedurally fair. I should be interested to hear the Minister's response to that key point.