Employment Tribunals

Debate between Lord Barber of Ainsdale and Baroness Levitt

Thursday 2nd July 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Barber of Ainsdale]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to reduce waiting times for consideration of cases in the Employment Tribunal system.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Justice (Baroness Levitt) (Lab)]

My Lords, the Government recognise that there are significant pressures on the employment tribunal. To try to deal with this, we are maximising sitting days and recruiting more employment judges to ensure swifter justice. We have also now expanded remote hearings through a virtual region, which enables about 2,000 sitting days to take place annually without geographic limits. It is hoped that the Fair Work Agency will also ease pressure on the employment tribunal; it is now enforcing rights such as the national minimum wage and, in due course, will enforce additional ones such as holiday pay.

[Lord Barber of Ainsdale (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for that reply and I very much welcome the work that has been and is being done with ACAS and others to address this challenge. I hope that proposals for change will quickly be developed. The waiting period for employment tribunal hearings is clearly unacceptably high; it is two years or more in many areas. Important new rights and protections have been established by the Employment Rights Act, but they must be delivered in reality and not just on the statute book. Can the Minister give an assurance that, as well as speeding up the handling and determination of cases, attention will be given to ensuring the effective enforcement of tribunal awards without the need for complex and time-consuming county court procedures? The last official survey on this issue showed that less than half of successful claimants had secured the full payment of the award that had been made by a tribunal. This is—

[Lord Barber of Ainsdale (Lab)]

Can the Minister assure me that enforcement of awards will be taken firmly into consideration in developing new proposals to overhaul the whole system?

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

Will I make myself popular if I simply say yes? I will give a bit more detail than that. The law is absolutely clear that workers should receive the payments to which they are entitled, and we are committed to strengthening enforcement options. At the moment, a claimant can instruct a High Court enforcement officer, and using the officer is free of charge. That is intended to encourage the employer to pay the award. But, as part of the plan for change, we are looking at ways of strengthening enforcement options, including through the employment tribunal penalty scheme, which has moved to the Fair Work Agency. The agency will work closely with HMRC, the Insolvency Service and other relevant enforcement bodies to do this as effectively as possible.