Employment Bill [HL]

My Lords, I am pleased to be speaking in this debate today on the Employment Bill. Overall, I welcome the aims of the Bill. They are to protect those workers who are among the most vulnerable and to reduce complications in the law for both employers and employees. Currently, the statutory workplace procedure can be both bureaucratic and burdensome. If industrial disputes can be solved earlier and less formally that would be a good step forward, so I welcome the proposal to strengthen unfair dismissal law and the new penalties for those employers who flout the national minimum wage. As the Minister said, there may be a few. I also welcome the creation of a further method for dealing with national minimum wage arrears which are owed to workers, the strengthening of the investigative powers of employment agency inspectors and the increased penalties on those agencies that breach minimum standards. All the above aims are also supported by the TUC and its two largest affiliates—my own union, Unite, and Unison. As always, however, improvements can be made to the Bill to further its aims. Other noble friends, much more knowledgeable than I, will speak on these issues and I look forward to their speeches. I have two small points on which to question the Minister. First, we will have any opportunity to consider the revised wording of the ACAS code of practice prior to its circulation and implementation? Secondly, would it not be more logical and tidier for employment tribunals to enforce underpayment or non-payment of awards, rather than the county courts? I now turn to two other areas covered by the Bill. The first relates to employment tribunals. I want to alert your Lordships’ Chamber to what is happening to employment tribunals today, I am afraid, in dribs and drabs in different Bills. We dabble in employment tribunals from time to time and we are doing so yet again in this Bill. I raise this issue because I firmly believe that in dabbling in this way we actually move the employment tribunal system away from its original purpose. That purpose, as my noble friend Lord Jones of Birmingham is very aware, was to be the court where working disputes could be resolved, a court where, most importantly, employers and those who work for them could present their cases to a tribunal, whose membership consisted of representatives from both sides of industry, sitting with a chair with legal expertise. That meant that those adjudicating had an in-depth knowledge of the matters under consideration, and those three members were of equal status. The more we tinker with employment tribunals and the access to them, as we are doing, the further away we move from their original purpose. I shall give an example of what happens when we dabble with tribunals in different pieces of legislation. When we debated the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007, in answer to a point I raised, the then Lord Chancellor, for whom I have tremendous respect, gave a guarantee that the employment tribunals and the immigration tribunals would remain stand-alone pillars. However, it would appear that this may not remain the case. At present, the Government are seeking views on a recently published document entitled, Transforming Tribunals, which is part of the ongoing implementation of a unified tribunal service. In this document the lines between the pillars separating employment tribunals and immigration tribunals from the rest of the tribunal system are becoming increasingly blurred. I am not the only person to be deeply disturbed by what is happening in this piecemeal way to employment tribunals. Many of those involved in tribunal work are deeply worried about their future direction. I will illustrate this concern by quoting the response of one tribunal to the Government’s proposals in the consultative document. The Government state that their starting point is the history behind the present use of non-legal members and they believe that now is the time for a major reassessment. My husband has been a member of the Central London Employment Tribunals Members Association for over 12 years. Its response is that the Government’s proposals, if adopted, would open the way for radical changes to the widely accepted basis of tribunals, which would be to the detriment of the parties and the quality of decision-making, and to the detriment of the tribunals’ credibility and effectiveness. The concern of the non-legal members about their status and role in future employment tribunal decision-making processes is understandable when one considers the very recent decision to change the title of employment tribunal chairs to employment tribunal judges, even before the fundamental review has taken place. If we are not careful this could have disastrous results for industrial relations. We will need to keep a close eye on what happens in the future. Finally, I turn to Clause 13 of the Bill, which covers the exemption of the cadet force adult volunteers—CFAVs—from the national minimum wage. These adults volunteer to assist in the activities of the cadet forces of our country, and they are invaluable to the running of the cadets in the Air Training Corps, the Army Cadet Force, the Sea Cadet Corps and the Combined Cadet Force. We have 130,000 cadets, many of whom will become the future generation in our Armed Forces. They are young people of whom we should be proud, and for whom we should ensure a high standard of support and training. This is where the cadet force adult volunteers come in—more than 26,000 men and women give up so much of their time to help. They give 1.6 million volunteered evenings and 590,000 whole-day’s training at weekends and annual camps each year. Of the 26,000 volunteers, 20,000 receive occasional remuneration. I declare an interest here. I am very proud to be the honorary president of the Yeadon Squadron 2168 Air Training Corps, and I am also the representative of the Air League Council on the Air Cadet Council. In these capacities I see the work of the adult volunteers at first hand and it is remarkable. Men and women work side-by-side with the young men and women in the corps, schooling them on how to be responsible cadets and, equally importantly, to become valuable citizens. Noble Lords will be aware that I am a keen supporter of the national minimum wage. I have fought over the years for the most vulnerable in our workforce to receive it. However, I totally agree with the exemption of CFAVs from the national minimum wage, as they do. It was never intended that CFAVs would be paid the national minimum wage. However, there has been confusion about the position, and Clause 13 clarifies the issue. The MoD has consulted widely with senior members of the CFAV, the cadet force association and the public, and the resounding response has been support for the view that CFAVs are not workers, but volunteers, and that they prize that position. The MoD recognises the enormous work they do by giving them a small remuneration, which has been the custom for many years. It recognises that CFAVs have to do much more than many other voluntary youth workers: they are trained to a high level of expertise; they deliver military-themed activities; they undergo special security; they sign the Official Secrets Act; and they adopt the military ethos of the armed services. Paying CFAVs the national minimum wage would designate them as workers and would impose obligations upon them which would remove their flexibility to volunteer which it suits the circumstances. Like other noble Lords, I have received a letter from General Sir Jack Deverell, the president of the Army Cadet Force Association, seeking my support for Clause 13, and I am pleased to give it. General Deverell describes the CFAVs giving selfless commitment and inspirational leadership, and he is right.