Employment Bill [Lords]

The Gibbons report said these reforms had been well intentioned but had had unintended consequences. That is precisely why we are repealing them and replacing them with non-statutory measures. We estimate that the changes contained in the Bill will produce annual benefits of some £177 million a year, and these measures are just a part of the wider simplification agenda, which is set to deliver benefits over and above that over the next three years. In addition, the Bill clarifies the position of cadet force adult volunteers in relation to the minimum wage and permits the payment of a broader range of expenses to voluntary workers without triggering entitlement to the minimum wage. It also amends trade union membership law to comply with the European Court of Human Rights judgement in ASLEF v. UK. I shall now turn in more detail to the measures in the Bill, beginning with those on workplace dispute resolution. In March 2007, the Government published Michael Gibbons' independent ““Better Dispute Resolution: a Review of Employment Dispute Resolution in Great Britain”” and an associated Government consultation paper, ““Resolving Disputes in the Workplace””. While the current statutory dispute resolution system is based on well-founded principles, the review highlighted several drawbacks in the way the system is operating, such as the inflexibility and high administrative burden of the mandatory procedures affecting both employers and employees, and that the road to the tribunal is fixed too early, resulting in a significant proportion of cases reaching a tribunal hearing which could have been resolved beforehand between the parties. Access to tribunals is an important part of the dispute resolution system and an important recourse for employees who may be facing mistreatment at work, but it is also the case that if disputes can be resolved more informally or earlier, perhaps through conciliation, that is the benefit of all concerned. The Government response to the consultation on dispute resolution shows that the responses were broadly supportive of the conclusions of the review. Some 76 per cent. of respondents favoured repeal of the 2004 procedures and only 20 per cent. opposed it. Clauses 1 and 2 provide for the repeal of the procedures and of linked provisions on procedural unfairness, but the review also made it clear that repeal of the statutory procedures must be accompanied by a package of other measures to encourage good practice in the resolution of workplace disputes and to ensure that Government-funded services promote early resolution as effectively as possible. So, to accompany the repeal, ACAS is revising its statutory code on disciplinary and grievance procedures. The draft code, which is out for public consultation, is concise and principles-based, and it will be supported by fuller non-statutory guidance.