Employment Bill [HL]

I am not persuaded. I asked the noble Lord, Lord Henley, a question with due consideration. To act in a judicial capacity is totally different from acting as a mediator. Once you have acted as a mediator, you have taken positions on the arguments. It is incomprehensible to me to understand why the Government would resist, as I have suggested—I would redraft, of course—an amendment to the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007. I said earlier today that that Act was put forward by the Ministry of Justice without adequate knowledge of employment tribunal matters. It now turns out that the department put it forward without understanding the most basic rule of justice: someone who is to act in a judicial capacity should not have acted in the case before, hearing, as the noble Lord said, matters in private and taking positions. The position is not even as a conciliator, it is as a mediator. The two are totally opposed in their conceptual categories. The consent of the parties is neither here nor there. Even if the Bill referred to the consent of the parties after qualified advice, I would oppose it, but it does not even say that. They just have to say, ““Oh, all right. Get on with it. We know you have acted as a mediator””. They may not understand the arguments at all. I would very much like the Committee to adjourn and consider the matter when we come back, if that is allowed. But if my noble friend opposes that, I shall have no alternative but to beg leave to withdraw the amendment. But I would ask the Government to think about this again. Would they throw aside what I believe has the broad support of the Committee? Would the Minister perhaps go as far as one single crumb of comfort and say, ““Yes, we will have another look at it, even though paragraph 42 of Schedule 8 to that curious statute of 2007 says that it should work in this way””? I do not know whether my noble friend can give us any comfort on the matter or whether the Government will dig in their heels on the most fundamental issue of normal British justice; not just British justice, but I do not know of a writing anywhere in the world that would suggest that a judge could act as a mediator in private before proceedings begin. If my noble friend cannot offer any crumb at all, this obviously is something to which the House will have to come back on Report. It is the most extraordinary twist and turn in regard to employment tribunals that I have ever imagined. I had no idea earlier today that we would reach this point. In order not to delay Members of the Committee far beyond the point where we should have stopped, all I can do now is beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.