Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, if he will bring forward legislative proposals to ensure that companies may not make decisions and announcements on mass redundancy without proper consultation with the workforce or trade unions.

The Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 already requires employers proposing to make 20 or more employees redundant from one establishment in a 90-day period to consult employees or their representatives:

• at least 45 days before the first dismissal takes effect where 100 or more redundancies are proposed.
• at least 30 days before the first dismissal takes effect where 20 or more redundancies are proposed.

The consultation must cover ways to avoid redundancies, reducing the numbers of redundancies, or mitigating their impact. Within the same timescales, the employer must notify the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy of the proposed collective redundancies. Failure to submit a notification without good cause is a criminal offence and can result in an unlimited fine. The Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service provides advice on best practice when managing large scale redundancies.

Employees and/or employee representatives may make a claim to an employment tribunal if they consider the employer has not complied with the consultation requirements for collective redundancies. If the tribunal agrees it may make a protective award of up to 90 days’ remuneration per employee.