Employment Bill [HL]

I am grateful to my noble friend for raising this issue. The amendment seeks to prevent a tribunal member who has been involved in an unsuccessful attempt to mediate a case from sitting on the tribunal panel which subsequently decides the outcome. The Government believe that this amendment is unnecessary. The Tribunals Service is presently trialling judicial mediation of employment disputes that would otherwise become the subject of an employment tribunal hearing. That trial will be carefully evaluated before any decision is made on whether to continue this activity. In the trial, no judge who has been involved in mediation is then able to play any part in the determination of the case should mediation not succeed. As recently as last year, Parliament enacted measures that will in effect prevent that from happening in the future. Schedule 8 to the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007 amends the Employment Tribunals Act 1996 to provide: "““Once a member has begun to act as a mediator in relation to a disputed matter in a case that is the subject of proceedings, the member may decide matters in the case only with the consent of the parties””." In a case where mediation was unsuccessful, if it was thought by one party or another that the mediator was unsympathetic to their case or their cause, of course that party would not grant consent to the mediator then being part of the panel. In effect, the consent of the parties is a crucial safeguard that a mediator is not likely to become a member of the panel. We think that that pretty well answers the point and I invite my noble friend to withdraw his amendment.