Clause 32 - Consequential adjustment of time limits
Employment Bill
11:15 am
Mr Alan Johnson (Minister of State (Employment and the Regions), Department of Trade and Industry; Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle, Labour)
The hon. Gentleman makes a good point, but there is a difference between this debate and those that we had on the basic three-step procedure, when we talked about ''reasonable'' time. If I remember rightly, that debate was about setting a period of a month. It is for the employer and employee to decide that matter.
The precise point that the hon. Gentleman made about the possibility of an employer spinning out the procedures will be discussed when we reach clause 33 on admissibility.
At the moment, most jurisdictions in schedule 3 have a three-month time limit for presenting a claim and the tribunal has the power to extend that time limit, generally where it believes that it was not reasonably practicable to have presented the claim within the time limit. We propose that complaints should not be regarded as out of time if a statutory procedure was begun within the normal period for complaining, but the application is made later, during an extended period of a further three months. Those extra three months would run from the expiry of the original three-month period. In some cases, a statutory procedure may not be commenced until after the expiry of the time limit, which would normally be when the claim itself was also out of time. We want to consider whether there should be any provision for extending the time limit if it was not reasonably practicable to have started the procedure within the time limit-for example, if the employee concerned was seriously ill.
In most jurisdictions, there will be three months to submit the claim, an extension of three months to allow internal procedures to be completed in exceptional circumstances, and a further two months if both parties agree that they have made sufficient progress to be able to resolve the case internally. That moves away from a procedure in which people focus on the employment tribunal almost as soon as the award has been made.
We are trying to deal with exceptional cases, of which the example of serious illness comes to mind and was raised during consultation. Given those assurances, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will be willing to withdraw the amendment.