Employment Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 15: 15: After Clause 7, insert the following new Clause— ““Unpaid award of compensation: recovery on behalf of claimant The Secretary of State shall by order make regulations for the recovery on behalf of the claimant, of any Employment Tribunal monetary award not fully paid by the respondent within forty two days of the date on which judgement was sent to the parties, and for the recovery of all associated enforcement costs from the respondent. The regulations shall identify— (a) the organisation or organisations responsible for recovery on behalf of the claimant; (b) the powers of such organisations in enforcing the judgement; (c) the regulatory framework in which such organisations shall utilise their powers.”” The noble Baroness said: My Lords, this amendment has been suggested to me by Citizens Advice. Its aim is to deal with the problem of non-payment by rogue employers of employment tribunal awards and the resultant difficulty and hardship caused to the claimants concerned. At present, and even after the implementation from April 2009 of the welcome provisions in the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007, such claimants are faced with having to take legally complex, time-consuming and costly enforcement action in the civil courts. Many simply do not do so, while others try but then give up. Rogue employers are aware of this and calculate that non-compliance pays. The amendment would enable unpaid awards to be enforced by the state on behalf of the claimant using existing civil court enforcement mechanisms. Just how widespread a problem is this? A recent survey conducted by Citizens Advice showed that in 2006-07 the 430 citizens advice bureaux in England and Wales dealt with an estimated 1,040 inquiries about enforcement of unpaid tribunal awards. In the first two quarters of this year, these bureaux dealt with an estimated 525 such inquiries. This would suggest that the total number of unpaid awards is in fact in the region of more than 1,000 a year. There is no doubt at all that vulnerable people face real hardship as a result of these failures. As I have already indicated, the Government have sought to remedy the situation by the provisions included in the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007, but Citizens Advice has said that these do not go far enough. It is the common experience of CAB advisers that claimants’ registration of unpaid awards in the county court, which under the Act is to become automatic and free of charge, frequently fails to secure a payment of the award, as the consequences for the employer of continued non-compliance are negligible. Citizens Advice has provided details of a number of cases in support of this, but because of the lateness of the hour, I shall not refer to them, although there are a number of sad cases where people are facing real difficulty because of failure to secure money that is rightfully theirs. For an individual who has not received his award, the process of enforcement that must follow registration of the unpaid award is legalistic, time consuming and expensive because of the need to pay court fees and, in some cases, to engage the services of a solicitor. Many people simply give up. Rogue employers are aware of that and calculate that non-compliance pays, hence the amendment providing for unpaid awards to be enforced by the state. It may be argued that that would cost a lot, but if claimants are unable to access money that is rightfully theirs, they become impoverished and then have recourse to the benefit system, which also costs the taxpayer money. Moreover, where such enforcement action is successful, costs could presumably be recovered from the defaulting employer. This amendment is based on a great deal of experience in this area, and I hope that the Government will be prepared to accept it. I beg to move.