Employment Tribunals Act 1996 (Tribunal Composition) Order 2012

Baroness Donaghy Excerpts

Wednesday 28th March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Donaghy]

I was a lay member of industrial tribunals, as they were then called, in the 1970s and 1980s and was also chair of ACAS for seven years until 2007. I have said before that I am not sentimental about employment tribunals, as they represent a breakdown in employment relations. The vast majority of applications to employment tribunals are withdrawn or settled through ACAS. The test of these statutory instruments should be whether they are objectively justified, and whether they will create jobs and encourage good employment relations.

On the objective justification, the Minister was kind enough to send a copy of one of the letters that he has sent around, in which he wrote that although the recent increasing trend in single claims being accepted does appear to have halted, it is difficult to establish a clear trend over the most recent quarters. Indeed—so why make policy on the hoof?

When I arrived at ACAS, I found 15,000 applications for equal pay in a room. They had been sitting there for a year and could not be conciliated as they were test cases that had to be handled differently. The Minister has said in a letter that multiple claims are processed and judicially managed together—so the claims that there has been a huge increase in applications is very misleading, as I think the Minister himself accepted in correspondence.

It is important to remember that employment tribunals are not judicial courts involving an applicant versus the state. They are there to hear disputes between employee and employer. Of course they take account of facts and take due process into consideration, but they also take account of the employment relationship. This is why the role of the lay member is so important. I was unhappy when the regulations were changed to allow employment judges to sit alone in cases involving notice periods, holiday pay and other slightly technical issues. I thought it was the thin end of the wedge then, but at least there was some intellectual cohesion to the proposal, as applicants used to find themselves caught between two different processes and facing long delays before they received their lawful payments.

The issue of claims for unfair dismissal is not slightly technical. I was struck by the number of times that the paperwork I would receive for a case made the decision seem cut and dried but at the actual hearing a very different picture would emerge. It will be a very detrimental step indeed for the role of lay members to be further diminished. Increasing the eligibility period for putting claims to an employment tribunal from one to two years will do nothing to improve employment relations or the morale of employees. I speak as a fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development; good management and good training are the answers here.

I appreciate that this is regarded as a small business problem. When I was chair of ACAS, the organisation spent a large proportion of its time on improving advice and guidance to small businesses to help to keep them out of trouble. It is perfectly possible to have adequate employment procedures on one side of A4 paper. Dare I say that too many with a financial interest insist on gold-plating employment procedures? We should concentrate on the world of work as an engine for growth, with well trained and motivated staff and good management. These measures are unworthy of any Government in the 21st century, and it makes me sad that this is being debated in the same week as the funeral of Lord Wedderburn.