Employment Rights Bill

Lord Katz Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 19th May 2025 Lords Chamber

That backlog means that genuine cases of harassment and genuine grievances are not being heard. We have one case at the Free Speech Union in which someone is bringing a case for unfair dismissal to the employment tribunal. That case, which we heard earlier this week, has been scheduled for July 2027. That is how long you have to wait now for a case to be heard in the employment tribunal. Yet it is absolutely clear that in all sorts of ways, but particularly with this clause, the Government will massively increase the number of cases that are brought before the employment tribunal as a result of this Bill. Given the extraordinary extent to which the ET is overwhelmed, given the waiting list—someone said that it was one year, but it is longer; it is almost two years—

[Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Katz) (Lab)]

My Lords, I respectfully point out that we have now had more than two hours on this group of amendments and that we have just come up to 12 minutes for the response to this long debate. A fair person would say that this is excessive free speech. I respectfully ask the noble Lord to bring his remarks to a conclusion, so that we can make some progress.

[Lord Young of Acton (Con)]

I will bring my remarks to a conclusion. Sorry, I thought I had 15 minutes. I misunderstood.