Industrial Tribunals: Fees

Lord Borrie Excerpts

Wednesday 19th October 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, I suspect that we will have discussions along these lines over a range of issues. I suspect that small charges for access to courts such as the tribunal service will not have a deterrent effect on meritorious cases. One small range of consultations suggested that there might be a small fall-off in applications with the introduction of fees. As part of the consultation that will take place in December, we hope to widen that impact assessment to make sure that we are going down the right road. Between 2001 and 2010, there was an 81 per cent increase in cases going to employment tribunals. There is a limit to what a free service at the taxpayers’ expense can bear.

[Lord Borrie]

My Lords, instead of charging workers for exercising their statutory rights to claim whatever it is that they want to claim for unfair dismissal, discrimination, et cetera, we should try to return to the position when employment and industrial tribunals started, replacing the courts to provide a more informal, less costly and simpler system to operate so that people would have the opportunity to put their case to a body that could deal with matters free of charge without incurring the sort of expense now being suggested.

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, I fully endorse the growl of approval from the Benches opposite but this is precisely the argument that we will have again and again in the weeks and months to come. The problem is that a system that started off as a non-confrontational, non-legal settlement of disputes has become peopled by m’learned friends at great expense. We are trying to move away from a legalistic approach to settling disputes to one that will settle more by arbitration, conciliation and mediation.