Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether his Department offers protection to staff from unfair dismissal from their first working day.

The protections for staff within the Department for Work and Pensions against unfair dismissal include the application of a fair, published, accessible discipline procedure, formal appeal of the decision to an independent appeal manager and an ability for the trade unions to raise with the central HR team any dismissal decisions they are concerned about.

These rights can be exercised by staff from their first day of working.

Where staff externally make a claim of unfair dismissal to the Employment Tribunal, the rules of the tribunal apply and this is outside DWP’s control.