Employment Bill [HL]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for a positive response to which I will return in just a minute. I first thank my noble friends Lord Campbell and Lord Henley for their support, drawn in both their cases from a substantial understanding of what is required. Despite the Minister’s reference to the sign on his desk saying, ““Settle out of court? What is the fun in that?””, I sense that he was describing those as the bad old days to which we should not return. I could not agree with him more. I found the Minister’s phrase that there would ““effectively and systematically”” be promotion of independent mediation remarkably helpful. That is a substantial move forward from our previous debate, although at that time I was erring down the road of compulsion. He and other noble Lords persuaded me that perhaps, as with Michael Gibbons’s findings, compulsion is not necessarily the right way forward. I was particularly intrigued by the Minister’s comment that demand may exceed supply. I hoped that he might return to the point that I raised specifically, which was that when demand exceeds supply, does ACAS have the power to engage the private sector to bring its resources to assist ACAS in an independent mediation? I can well understand that if parties have decided to go down the mediation route, ACAS should not pay the bill, but it surely fits in with the Government’s attitude to public/private partnerships that there should be a close working relationship between those who provide mediation services and ACAS. When demand exceeds supply, there would then be an opportunity to press a lever marked ““private-sector support”” that ACAS can call in.