Intellectual Property (Hargreaves Report)
Debate between Brian Binley and Christopher Chope(13 years ago)
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Mr Binley
That is the quickest response for action I have every had from any Minister. I am most appreciative. I congratulate the Minister on taking on a very difficult brief that is not primarily his own. I understand that he does not want to say too much before the Government consultation has finished but, on the basis of our long friendship, will he talk to the Minister concerned about the use of search engines? The need to ensure that the creative arts get well recompensed for their product is vital and increasingly urgent.
Employment Opportunities Bill
Debate between Brian Binley and Christopher Chope
Mr Brian Binley (Northampton South) (Con)
My hon. Friend is as eloquent as ever, although I hope he will speed up a little in order to allow me to deal with my Bill
Is my hon. Friend going to talk about the black economy? One problem with the employment law he is talking about is that it enlarges the black economy. There is certainly evidence of that in Greece, and from my experience there is evidence of it in Northampton, too.
Mr Chope
My hon. Friend is absolutely right about the black economy, and indeed I will refer to it in due course. The Low Pay Commission itself accepts that there are more than 1 million operating in the black economy at below the national minimum wage. That demonstrates that the minimum wage legislation is not working anyway and is widely ignored.
Tribunals (Maximum Compensation Awards) Bill
Debate between Brian Binley and Christopher Chope(13 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Chope
To put the issue in context, I will quote briefly from some newspapers. On 24 October 2008, the MailOnline had the headline “Asian bank worker gets record £2.8m race discrimination payout”. On 10 September 2009, another headline read: “Sacked council manager wins £1 million age discrimination payout”,
and a report has come out in the past few days saying:
“Discrimination compensation payouts hit an all time high.
A recent annual survey of compensation awards in the Equal Opportunities Review has revealed that the amount being paid out by employers in discrimination cases has more than doubled in two years.”
Mr Brian Binley (Northampton South) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend recognise that there is a level below a claim which employers are quite concerned about? They are being threatened with being taken to a tribunal as a way of extracting money from them. Many employers are advised at local level to give in and not allow the case to go to a tribunal. In that respect, there is a certain element of the blackmailers charter about all this. I wondered whether my hon. Friend had thought about that and why he had not included it in his Bill.
Mr Chope
I am sure that I could have included it in the Bill, but it is implicit that having a lower maximum figure in the case of unfair dismissal and an absolute maximum figure—there is no maximum figure at present—in the case of discrimination cases will reduce the bargaining power in a situation such as that my hon. Friend outlined. He described it as blackmail. We know that companies can sometimes be threatened with being taken to a tribunal and subject to all sorts of allegations it will find difficult to answer, so they pay up to an aggrieved ex-employee.