Clause 5
Employment Bill [Lords]
11:45 am
Jonathan Djanogly (Shadow Minister, Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform; Huntingdon, Conservative)
The clause deals with encouraging conciliation. I am happy to say that we agree with the thrust of these proposals. In the other place, there was significant debate on the relative merits of conciliation and mediation. Perhaps that was because many mediators were involved in that debate. I am not a mediator. I have since heard in a roundabout way that ACAS is generally not keen on mediation as a form of dispute resolution. There are certainly some circumstances in which mediation is a better way of moving forward than conciliation. Does the Minister agree with the claim that I have heard that ACAS steers clear of mediation when it should sometimes go in that direction? What is the Government’s attitude to mediation? If he thinks that there are situations where mediation would be more appropriate, how does he intend to promote it?