New Clause 5
Employment Bill [Lords]
3:15 pm
Brian Binley (Northampton South, Conservative)
I welcome the Government’s proposals to deal with most of these matters at an earlier stage. That is absolutely right and proper.
We have, in part, created a blackmail culture. I shall explain what I mean by that from personal experience. I have had the sad opportunity of handling two industrial tribunals, both of which we won. In both of them, the company that I had started was told that it was not at fault and the recipients used lawyers provided by the citizens advice bureau, although I am not saying that that should stop. In fact, we talked to the citizens advice bureau. It was not very helpful. It felt, frankly, that, as a business with 30 or 40 people, we were quite capable of standing on our own. However, businesses that I classify as small, developing ones, do not have human resources departments, and that is where the problems fall hardest in many respects. I agree that, for very small businesses, the citizens advice bureau is very helpful, but, with those bigger businesses, there is a sort of cultural view that they ought to be able to look after themselves.
We were advised by many other business people to pay £2,000 and not to bother with the tribunal, even though I was adamant that we were right and had acted correctly. I felt that that particular blackmail culture was unacceptable. Frankly, it is bad for our commercial and industrial processes. I disregarded the advice, and we went ahead and fought. I am glad that I did, because we won on both occasions. However, we added up the costs of the preparation and of appearing at the tribunal for two days with three witnesses who had to be there on each occasion. The first one cost us £9,000, the second one £14,000. That was a heavy blow to a business in which cash flow was vital; we were not cash-rich, my house was backing the process and we were struggling to grow, which we successfully did.
We need to take note of two elements when considering the provision. The first is the blackmail culture. Do not get me wrong, I am not saying that everybody who goes to an industrial tribunal is a potential blackmailer. That is not the point. Many people have genuine cases and we should recognise that. I am not arguing that all the employers are good and all employees are bad; that is far from the truth. However, we need to recognise the blackmail culture among certain groups of people, and take it into account.
The second element to consider is that costs were not awarded to us. On both occasions, the whole exercise was a sizable demand on our cash flow, and the news that we had spent all that money was not well received by the bank. I got the impression that it may have thought that we should have paid £2,000 and not bothered with the tribunal.
I know that the Minister does not want to want to generate that culture, but I ask him to take that atmosphere into account. I will support the new clause. I do not know whether the wording is correct. I do not know whether there are other ways of doing it. However, I do know that there is a problem, and we need to deal with it more effectively than we are at the moment, hence my support.