Tribunals (Maximum Compensation Awards) Bill

Tony Lloyd Excerpts

Friday 17th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Tony Lloyd (Manchester Central) (Lab)]

I will be brief, because my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson) on the Front Bench also wants to say a few words.

Many of us share the sense of astonishment of the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) at the extraordinary £2 million-plus claims that have occasionally gone through, but it is important that we make it clear, as my hon. Friend already has, that the median payout by tribunals for sex discrimination and for discrimination on the grounds of gender, race or whatever is considerably lower. The median payout for all those is less than £7,000, which is a world apart from the £2 million that the hon. Gentleman has cited, and we need to put that firmly on the public record. Those payouts of under £7,000 are also all way below the maximum cap for unfair dismissal, which is £68,000, so it really is desperately important that what the hon. Gentleman says about high-end payments should not determine the tribunal payouts for sex discrimination or for discrimination on the grounds of gender, race or whatever. Such discrimination still infects our workplaces, and people suffer enormously.

The median payout of £7,000 recognises the loss of earnings that takes place, but people do not simply lose their jobs, because those who go through such intolerable bullying in the workplace suffer enormously at psychological and personal levels, too. Earlier, we debated good and bad employers, and the fact that such tribunal cases are fought successfully is evidence that some employers allow the most unacceptable practices in the workplace. However, those cases do not involve the mega-payouts that the hon. Gentleman has mentioned.

If the idea is to equate, for example, sex discrimination with unfair dismissal, I also say gently to the hon. Gentleman that I do not understand why he has not equalised the cap on each. I share with him my profound belief, however, that he was right to challenge the Minister on the impact of European law, because it would not be possible to bring in his legislation without at least a massive challenge going right through our domestic legal system to—I think I am right in saying—the Court in Luxembourg and, perhaps, to the Court in Strasbourg. He will therefore have some difficulty persuading any Government to take on the Bill as it stands.