Clause 1
Employment Bill [Lords]
10:30 am
Jonathan Djanogly (Shadow Minister, Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform; Huntingdon, Conservative)
We open the debate on the opening clauses of the Bill, which deal with dispute resolution and tribunals. I mirror the Minister in noting that significant consideration has been given to these provisions and to the Bill as a whole in another place. It did a pretty thorough job. I say here and now that I do not intend to rerun all of the debates that were held in the Lords where that is not required. Hon. Members will see that from the amendments that have been tabled thus far. However, that will be required in a few instances.
Furthermore, my party recognises that the clause, which deals with employment dispute resolution, is an admission by the Government that their 2002 reforms of dispute resolution have failed and that they need to go back to what was there before and start again some six years later. We support the provisions of the clause, as proposed by the Gibbons review, although we note how unimpressed we are with the process that has come to this position over the last six years.