Employment Tribunal Fees
Debate between Jo Stevens and Rupa Huq(8 years, 11 months ago)
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Jo Stevens
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I could not have put it better myself.
As we have heard, there has been a 69% drop in single-applicant cases since the introduction of fees. However, I want to comment on a couple of other statistics. There has been a 90% drop in sex discrimination cases and a 45% drop in pregnancy-related unfair dismissal cases. That is yet another example of the Prime Minister’s problem with women. He does not want public money spent on women, so they bear the brunt of 75% of his Government’s public sector spending cuts. He does not want to do anything about the grossly unfair VAT regime—the tampon tax. Instead, he cuts funding for domestic violence refuges and rape counselling services, and he makes women pay for those services themselves through the VAT on sanitary products. Furthermore, if any of us is subject to sex discrimination at work or sacked because we are pregnant, he prices us out of access to an employment tribunal to challenge that unlawful treatment.
Jo Stevens
My hon. Friend makes a valid point. Irony is alive and well in this House. I do not quite know where to start with my thanks to the Prime Minister for the way he treats women.
I turn to what I expect the Minister to refer to as the Government’s mechanism to mitigate people’s being priced out of justice: the fee remission system. Given that the affordability of fees is a central issue in the debate, the remission system’s effectiveness in addressing it is important. However, the reality is that the system is little more than a fig leaf. For each separate fee incurred, a separate application for fee remission, with detailed evidence of income, must be provided. The booklet to guide people through the process is 31 pages long, and the preparation of applications can take up to 30 minutes, increasing the costs of the case every time a court fee is incurred. That work also has an impact on the time of court and tribunal staff. It represents unnecessary bureaucracy, as well as a backward step in the Government’s stated intention to move towards deregulation, efficiency and cost cutting.
In a speech to the Engineering Employers Federation in November 2011, the then Business Secretary, Vince Cable, said:
“I want to make it very clear that for those with a genuine claim, fees will not be a barrier to justice. We will ensure that there is a remissions system for those who need help.”
The latest available information on remission comes from statistics issued by the employment tribunals. They show that, from July 2013 to June 2015, only 17.7% of issue fees requested were remitted.
My hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston commented on the redundancy fund. Claimants are forced to pay tribunal fees out of their redundancy pay. I really hope the Justice Committee will address that issue in its report on access to justice. I also hope it will look specifically at the terrible problem of employment tribunal fees, which affect women in particular. I ask the Minister to take those comments back to his colleagues to ensure that fees are scrapped.