Asked by: Chris Stephens (Scottish National Party - Glasgow South West)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how much HM Courts and Tribunal Service received in employment tribunal fees in (a) 2016-17 and (b) 2017-18; and what proportion of that sum was foregone in fee remission.
Answered by Dominic Raab
Information on HMCTS’s income and fee remissions, including for Employment Tribunals, is contained in the HMCTS Annual Report and Accounts. The accounts for 2016/17 can be found at the following location:
In 2016/17, HMCTS received £8m in fee income, and fee remissions worth a further £4m were granted under the Help with Fees scheme.
The Ministry of Justice stopped charging fees in the Employment Tribunals on 26 July 2017 following the Supreme Court’s judgment in the case of R (Unison) v Lord Chancellor. Information on the fee income and remissions for 2017-18 will be included in the 2017/18 Annual Report and Accounts which will be published in the summer of 2018.
Asked by: Chris Stephens (Scottish National Party - Glasgow South West)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what plans his Department has to review policies regarding the retention of documents relating to applications made under the Gender Recognition Act 2004.
Answered by Dominic Raab
The policy regarding the retention of documents relating to applications made under the Gender Recognition Act 2004 was last reviewed in 2015, and there are no immediate plans to review it at the time of this reply.
Asked by: Chris Stephens (Scottish National Party - Glasgow South West)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many equality impact assessments have been carried out in the last three years on public service reforms which impact on (a) departmental staff and (b) members of the public; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Phillip Lee
Over the last three years the Ministry of Justice has had and continues to have due regard, as necessary, to the public sector equality duty in exercising its functions. The Equality Act does not require this due regard to take the form of an equality impact assessment, nor does it define an equality impact assessment, and the department does not maintain a record of such assessments.
Asked by: Chris Stephens (Scottish National Party - Glasgow South West)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how much has been received by HM Courts and Tribunal Service in payment of employment tribunal fees in (a) 2015-16 and (b) 2016-17 to date; and what proportion of that sum was foregone in fee remission.
Answered by Oliver Heald
Information on income received by HMCTS is published on gov.uk. In 2015/16 fee remission accounted for 21%. In 2016/17 to the end of July 2016 the equivalent figure is 25%.
Asked by: Chris Stephens (Scottish National Party - Glasgow South West)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment she has made of whether the level of tribunal fees acts as a disincentive to women pursuing a sex discrimination claim.
Answered by Oliver Heald
We will publish the outcome of our review into Employment Tribunal Fees in due course.
Asked by: Chris Stephens (Scottish National Party - Glasgow South West)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what proportion of appeals to the tribunal service from appellants in (a) Glasgow South West constituency, (b) Glasgow and (c) Scotland regarding (i) personal independence payments, (ii) employment and support allowance, (iii) income support, (iv) jobseeker's allowance and (v) tax credits were successful in the latest period for which figures are available.
Answered by Oliver Heald
Information about the volumes and outcomes of appeals to the Tribunal is published at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/tribunals-statistics.
The information provided below is a further breakdown of this data.
Proportion of appeals decided in favour of the appellant between April 2015 and March 2016 | |||||
| PIP1 | ESA2 | IS | JSA | Tax Credits3 |
Glasgow4 | 58% | 58% | 42% | 49% | 53% |
Scotland | 53% | 57% | 37% | 48% | 49% |
Tribunal figures are presented on a financial year basis (April 2015 – March 2016).
Social Security and Child Support data are normally registered to the venue nearest to the appellant’s home address. We cannot retrieve data based on the appellant’s actual address, but can produce reports detailing the numbers of cases that were dealt with at one of our Regional centres
1 Personal Independence Payment (PIP) (New Claim Appeals) which replaces Disability Living Allowance was introduced on 8 April 2013, also includes Personal Independence Clams (Reassessments)
2 Includes Employment Support Allowance (ESA) and Employment Support Allowance (Reassessments)
3 Includes Child Tax Credit and Working Tax Credit.
4 Glasgow includes the venues: Glasgow Wellington House and Glasgow Eagle Building
Cleared at hearing includes cases cleared at both oral and paper hearings. It may also include some withdrawals. It excludes cases cleared prior to hearing.
Although care is taken when processing and analysing the data, the details are subject to inaccuracies inherent in any large-scale case management system and is the best data that is available.
The data may differ slightly to that of the published stats as this data was run on a different date.
Asked by: Chris Stephens (Scottish National Party - Glasgow South West)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the average length of time was for fee remission in employment tribunal claims between receipt of such claims and final processing in the latest period for which figures are available; and what proportion of fee remission applications were successful in that period.
Answered by Oliver Heald
This information is available on gov.uk within the published Tribunals and Gender Recognition Statistics Quarterly.
Asked by: Chris Stephens (Scottish National Party - Glasgow South West)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what meetings (a) Ministers and (b) officials in his Department have had with representatives of (i) the Taxpayers' Alliance, (ii) the Confederation of British Industry, (iii) the Institute of Economic Affairs, (iv) the Adam Smith Institute, (v) the Freedom Association, (vi) the Politics and Economics Research Trust and (vii) the Midlands Industrial Council in the last 12 months.
Answered by Shailesh Vara
Details of Ministers' and Permanent Secretaries meetings with external organisations are published up to 31 March 2015 and can be accessed on Gov.uk at:https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/ministers-transparency-publications
Further publications of Ministerial and Permanent Secretaries meetings will be published in due course.