Employment Bill [HL]

The responses of my noble friend Lord Henley and the Minister have been well worth waiting for. I was motivated to move this amendment to highlight the importance of mediation. I greatly respect all the experience of my noble friend Lord Campbell and the noble Lord, Lord Wedderburn, on both the practical and the academic side, but the noble Lord, Lord Wedderburn, should not be too patronising about alleged lack of knowledge. I do not think that he looked up when he asked us to put up our hands concerning the Conciliation Act 1896. Had he done so, he would have seen us all nodding vigorously. I recall how the Conciliation Act 1896 built on the very valuable history of conciliation boards being developed at the time in key industries such as the coal trade. Then we had the Arbitration Act 1889, which moved things in the direction of arbitration. The Conciliation Act 1896 was very important because it disallowed Section 3 of the Arbitration Act 1889 and therefore built up over the years an immensely valuable series of conciliation experiences. Therefore, I do not think that the noble Lord, Lord Wedderburn, should presume ignorance on our part. We have all looked at the history of this. I particularly wanted to highlight the role of mediation in order to explore what the Minister told us. He said that more resources are going into ACAS conciliation, which I greatly welcome—£37 million over three years is an impressive sum—and that this is complementary, not substitutional, and will deal with conflict in the workplace at the earliest possible opportunity. These are all steps in the right direction. However, as my noble friend pointed out, the only way that mediation has been given that extra boost in other areas is by a series of penalties, such as the costs penalty now frequent in civil litigation including unfair dismissal. The way in which mediation is encouraged by the Bench in all sorts of disputes involves some element of penalty. On reflection, however, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Borrie, and Michael Gibbons that to go in the direction of compulsion is a big step. I therefore want to go away and think about what has been said. However, it in no way removes the emphasis on the importance of mediation that I wanted to put in this debate. I very much welcome what the noble Lords, Lord Borrie and Lord Wedderburn, and my noble friends Lord Henley and Lord Campbell, said about the key role of ACAS. I would like the Minister to explore whether there is sufficient power under present legislation for ACAS to provide a mediation service as opposed to its traditional conciliation service. I agree with my noble friend Lord Campbell that there is a great history here, where ACAS has achieved a great deal. Mediation or conciliation must not become just another procedural step. It must be informal and with the wholehearted consent of all the parties who are then able to resolve their disputes without troubling the courts of law or the tribunals. That was the purpose behind my amendment, so I greatly welcome what the Minister has said.