Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many employment tribunal claims have been lodged against her Department in each of the last five years for (a) unfair dismissal and (b) claims under the Equality Act 2010.

Defra’s casework data is held for three years from the date of case closure.

Over the last three years, Defra received 33 Employment Tribunal claims on the grounds of Unfair Dismissal or under the Equality Act. The 33 cases are broken down into the following:

Financial Year 2022-23 = total of 9 cases

Financial Year 2023-24 = total of 11 cases

Financial Year 2024-25 = total of 7 cases

Financial Year 2025-26 = total of 6 cases to date

The information requested for the older two years is not held centrally and to obtain it would incur disproportionate costs.