Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure a fair and accessible system for resolving employment disputes which is not restricted by financial burdens.

The Government is committed to ensuring an effective, efficient, and affordable justice system for all. We have taken various steps to increase capacity in the Employment Tribunals, such as the recruitment of an additional 19 salaried ET judges and 150 fee-paid ET judges in 2022/23. Additionally, the Judicial Review and Courts Act 2022 will transfer Employment Tribunal rule-making powers to the Tribunal Procedures Committee. This will allow the judiciary to manage their workloads more flexibly, maximising the capacity of the Employment Tribunal.

The Government is also investing in the development of new digital processes. The Employment Tribunal Reform project will provide a simple, fair and accessible service with simplified channels for engaging with the service, a focus on early resolution of cases, transparency for all the parties as the case progresses, and a reduction in the time taken to resolve employment disputes.

In addition, the Government supports the resolution of employment disputes via early conciliation, where possible. The Advisory Conciliation and Arbitration Service (Acas) provides free and impartial advice to assist parties in resolving their employment disputes. Acas received £56m in 2022/23 from the Department of Business and Trade (DBT), with c.£24m directed towards individual dispute resolution activity.

The Government is currently consulting on introducing modest fees in the Employment Tribunal and the Employment Appeal Tribunal. The Ministry of Justice recognises that the ET fees established in 2013 and quashed in 2017 by the Supreme Court were too high, and has carefully considered the lessons of the Unison Supreme Court judgment when developing this proposal.

The proposal of introducing modest fees seeks to ensure user-contribution towards the tribunals, which are currently fully funded from direct taxation, while ensuring that the principles of affordability, proportionality and simplicity underpinning the proposed fees continue to preserve access to justice for all.

Those who cannot afford to pay the proposed fees will be supported by our fee remission scheme, Help with Fees (HwF). In 2022/23, the scheme provided £80m in financial support to those on low incomes and with little to no savings. The scheme was recently reformed in November 2023 to provide for a much more generous scheme. In exceptional circumstances, the Lord Chancellor can exercise his power to remit a fee, which further ensures that access to justice is protected.