Employment Bill [HL]

I support my noble friend’s amendment but with one reservation. I may be unduly sensitive to this because I had to apologise for not doing it at the beginning of our proceedings. Getting a tribunal judgment without delay after conciliation steps and the like have been taken is in accordance with Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which, if I may paraphrase, says that in the determination of civil rights everyone is entitled to a fair and public hearing within a reasonable time by an independent and impartial tribunal. The convention on human rights assumes that the answer to the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell, can be found on the ground within a reasonable time. I cannot say what a reasonable time is in any individual dispute; someone will have to decide. My noble friend gives the individual claimant the right to say he has had enough. I do not think that that would impair ACAS’s conciliation work, which the Committee will have seen that I am very keen to support on the basis of 100 years’ experience. Article 6 says that you must have a fair and public tribunal hearing within a reasonable time. That is made clear and substantive in my noble friend’s amendment.