Employment Bill

Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 4:15 pm on 18 June 2002.

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Photo of Lord McIntosh of Haringey Lord McIntosh of Haringey Deputy Chief Whip (House of Lords), HM Household, Captain of the Queen's Bodyguard of the Yeomen of the Guard (HM Household) (Deputy Chief Whip, House of Lords) 4:15, 18 June 2002

My Lords, Clause 39 on compromise agreements caused a great deal of concern when we debated it in Grand Committee. My noble friend Lord Sainsbury announced to the House on 30th April, in answer to a question from my noble friend Lord McCarthy, that the Government had decided to bring forward an amendment at Report stage of the Bill to delete the clause.

We continue to feel that some of the concerns expressed are misplaced and perhaps it would be helpful if I run through our reasons for the deletion of Clause 39 once again. They are twofold. First, although we continue to believe that any agreement that attempts to compromise away an employee's future rights would not be a valid agreement, we recognise that recent case law—my noble friend Lord Wedderburn argued this part of the case effectively in Committee—has created some uncertainty in this area.

Secondly, we recognise the risk that even though such an agreement would in our view be invalid, an employer might nevertheless attempt to persuade his employee to sign such an agreement. And if that happened, the fact that its legal validity was highly questionable would not alter the fact that having signed the agreement the employee might well then be deterred from going to a tribunal in the future in the belief that he no longer had the right to do so.

I have made clear, as have the noble Lord, Lord Sainsbury, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, that it is not the Government's intention that any employee should be deterred in this way. We have concluded that we cannot risk Clause 39 of the Employment Bill being misused like this and we ask the House to support our amendment to delete it from the Bill. The other amendments are purely consequential.