Draft Unfair Dismissal (Variation of the Limit of Compensatory Award) Order 2013
The Committee consisted of the following Members:
† Blears, Hazel (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)
† Burley, Mr Aidan (Cannock Chase) (Con)
† Clarke, Mr Tom (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (Lab)
† Coffey, Dr Thérèse (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)
† Crabb, Stephen (Lord Commissioner of Her Majesty's Treasury)
† Fox, Dr Liam (North Somerset) (Con)
† Harris, Mr Tom (Glasgow South) (Lab)
† Healey, John (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)
† Henderson, Gordon (Sittingbourne and Sheppey) (Con)
† Munn, Meg (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab/Co-op)
† Murray, Ian (Edinburgh South) (Lab)
† Percy, Andrew (Brigg and Goole) (Con)
† Raab, Mr Dominic (Esher and Walton) (Con)
† Roy, Mr Frank (Motherwell and Wishaw) (Lab)
Simpson, David (Upper Bann) (DUP)
† Swinson, Jo (Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills)
† Wollaston, Dr Sarah (Totnes) (Con)
Nick Beech, Committee Clerk
† attended the Committee
Fifth Delegated Legislation Committee
Tuesday 9 July 2013
[Mr James Gray in the Chair]
Draft Unfair Dismissal (Variation of the Limit of Compensatory Award) Order 2013
5.2 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Jo Swinson): I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Unfair Dismissal (Variation of the Limit of Compensatory Award) Order 2013.
It is a great pleasure, Mr Gray, to serve under your chairmanship. The draft order introduces a pay-based cap to compensatory awards that can be made by an employment tribunal in unfair dismissal cases. The cap will sit alongside the existing limit of £74,200.
The pay-based cap may now be applied as a result of new powers introduced in section 15 of the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013. The powers allow the Secretary of State to vary the limit on compensatory awards in two ways. First, the overall limit of £74,200 may be changed as long as the new limit is no less than the median annual salary and no more than three times that salary. Secondly, a cap based on an individual’s pay may be introduced provided that the cap is no less than 52 weeks of an individual’s pay. In a successful tribunal case, the claimant’s award would be capped by either the pay-based cap or the overall limit. The lower of the two figures would be applied in each case. The draft order introduces a pay-based cap fixed at 52 weeks of pay. At this time, we have no plans to change the overall limit of £74,200.
Since the introduction of unfair dismissal back in 1971, all Governments have agreed that a cap on awards for unfair dismissal is necessary. The limit was subject to a one-off increase from £12,000 to £50,000 in 1999 and has been increasing above the rate of inflation ever since. As a result, the limit, which now stands at £74,200, has moved far in excess of the average award, which has been around £5,000 for the past seven years. The Government take the view that the disparity has created unrealistic perceptions about the likely level of award that can be expected at tribunal.
On 14 September 2012, therefore, we issued a public consultation that sought views on the appropriate level of the compensatory cap for unfair dismissal awards. The consultation closed on 23 November 2012, and 144 responses were received. There was no consensus on an appropriate level for the overall cap. Strong arguments were made, however, in favour of the introduction of a pay-based cap. Some 95% of business respondents supported the introduction of a pay-based cap.
A pay-based cap can help to align expectations with reality and should give employers more certainty about the costs of a dispute.
John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab): The Minister said that 95% of business respondents supported the cap under the Government proposals. Which business organisations were part of the 5% that did not?
Jo Swinson: I will certainly ensure that I answer the hon. Gentleman’s question before the end of the debate.
As I was saying, the lack of alignment between expectation and reality could be a problem for both employees and employers. The problem for employers is the lack of certainty about the costs of any possible dispute. They may lack confidence to take on new staff due to a fear of being liable for huge sums. However, it is also important to recognise the problems of unrealistic expectations among employees. If claimants feel that they might receive a massive payout of many thousands of pounds, they may be less willing to use alternative methods to resolve workplace disputes. Instead, claimants might opt straight for a tribunal hearing in the hope of receiving a high award.
I think that the Committee would agree that when high awards are made, they are often much publicised in the media, which can lead to unrealistic expectations, particularly when the average is significantly lower. A cap will help realign expectations, and will mean, ideally, that claimants and everyone involved considers all routes open to them in resolving a dispute. That dates back to the initial purpose of Government reforms to the tribunal system, which was to have as many alternatives as possible for employees and employers to resolve workplace disputes, which will sometimes occur. However, I think that we can all agree that tribunals are often not the best place to resolve them, because they are costly in terms of time, stress and money for everybody involved.
Of course every individual who is unfairly dismissed deserves a right to redress, but we must balance that with employers’ ability to hire new staff when needed if their businesses are to survive and flourish. Bearing those issues in mind, on 17 January this year, in the official Government response to the consultation “Ending the Employment Relationship”, we announced our intention to introduce a cap based on 52 weeks of pay.
The Government are committed to making the UK labour market fair, flexible and effective. As part of that goal, we have considered employment relationships that are not working and what the state can do to support all parties in such situations. Introducing the pay-based cap on the compensatory award for unfair dismissal claims is intended to encourage that flexibility and effectiveness and to give employees and employers more certainty about the likely costs and outcomes of an unfair dismissal case, while still adequately compensating individuals who have been unfairly dismissed.
The Government believe that the power that we are introducing is a positive step forward. It provides clarity, certainty and a realistic level of compensation where individuals have genuinely suffered a loss. I look forward to Members’ comments and commend the order to the Committee.
5.7 pm
Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab): It is a great pleasure to just about serve under your chairmanship again this afternoon, Mr Gray. We will allow you to get your breath back after running along that lengthy corridor.
It is worth putting into context where we are in terms of the draft order, and putting some colour and some facts around the evidence before us. The United Kingdom currently has the third most liberal jobs market in the OECD. That has been measured as fact. The Government tell us that economic growth in this country is stalling not because of the economy, the eurozone or even the snow but—when we are presented with changes to employment law—because the matrix of workers’ rights in this country is holding it back. We know that that is not the case.
Mr Dominic Raab (Esher and Walton) (Con): The hon. Gentleman referred to the OECD survey. Does that relate to small businesses or all businesses? The real problem with stifling red tape in this country is the impact that it has on expanding small businesses that want to hire. Particularly with youth unemployment at one in five, is not resolving that something that the Opposition should get behind?
Ian Murray: I am delighted by that intervention. I ran my own small businesses before I came into the House. Indeed, my main aim every morning when I opened the front doors was demand and the economy—making sure that customers came in. The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills’s own small business survey showed last year that only 6% of small businesses were concerned about regulation. That includes all regulation, not just employment regulation.
I agree that there is an issue of perception of the employment tribunal system, and it must be dealt with. ACAS has a real role to play in ensuring that it can educate small businesses in what the whole landscape of employment rights means, but let us deal with that perception rather than changing the law.
Joy Drummond, who has been an employment lawyer for Simpson Millar for more than 30 years, gave evidence to the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill Committee, from which this statutory instrument was spawned. She said that if there is a problem with perception, let us change it, rather than changing the law. I do not disagree with the hon. Gentleman, but the evidence points in a slightly different direction. Perhaps it emphasises why we are in this argument about ideology and rhetoric, rather than the actualities of the policies.
John Healey: My hon. Friend answered the hon. Member for Esher and Walton effectively. Talking about the OECD’s research and drawing on its employment data, which cover all firms in particular economies, does he accept and is he aware that, in the research it has done of the 36 most prosperous countries around the world, only workers in Canada and the US have weaker employment protection than workers in the UK?
Ian Murray: I am delighted with that intervention. The OECD studies cover the entirety of workers’ rights that are available rather than whether they affect large or small businesses, so it is done from the other side rather than from the analysis of the business end. My right hon. Friend is right to point out that it is just the US and Canada. Most Members hold up Germany as a country to which we should aspire, but it ends up at about 18th or 19th in terms of workers’ and employment rights.
If we look back to 1997, 1998 and 1999, the previous Labour Government made changes to the matrix of employment rights that saw the qualification period change from two years to one year. They also created 1.5 million jobs and 1 million small businesses. The evidence, therefore, points to the opposite: that it is about demand in the economy and about growing businesses, and not about the regulations at work. I argue that the order is just another building block towards the full implementation of the Beecroft proposals, with which I know that the Secretary of State and the Minister do not agree. None the less, 85% of them, according to the figures of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, have been implemented already. I will try to demonstrate how the statutory instrument is just another nail in the coffin, and Beecroft by the back door, if I can mix two metaphors.
Statutory instruments in the past 18 months have moved the qualification period from one year to two years, and collective redundancy has been moved from 90 days to 45 days. We have also had the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill, which spawned the order. Settlement agreements, ACAS early conciliation and the introduction of fees have all been put in place. Someone now has to go around that whole system, managing to navigate the protected and without prejudice conversations and the conciliation service at ACAS, and be able to afford the £1,250 to get into the employment tribunal system, but, even when justice is being delivered, people are unable to claim the compensation that they might deserve, because the draft statutory instrument we are considering restricts it to a year’s salary or £74,200.
There is a real problem. When people have won their case, after surmounting all those hurdles, they end up in the scenario whereby the Government are legislating to say, “You may deserve compensation in excess of a year’s salary, but you are not getting that compensation.” It is another part of access to justice. The Minister, in her introductory comments, even used the term “deserves a right to redress”.
If someone goes through that process, and a legally qualified judge in an employment tribunal says that they deserve to be compensated for the wrongs to which they have been subjected, and that redress should be given, it should be given based on the facts, and not arbitrarily controlled to deal with a perception in the system.
Paragraph 8.5 of the explanatory memorandum states:
“Using previous award levels, the Government has estimated that only about 5% of successful unfair dismissal claims would be affected by the 52 weeks pay cap.”
That is correct, because the average unfair dismissal claim is between £4,000 and £6,000; it fluctuates slightly every year. The danger from that is, because there is a limit of 52 weeks’ pay, the overall average will be reduced. Do those 5% of claimants not deserve justice? Why bother putting in the 52-weeks limit if it affects only 5% of claims? If the 5% of claimants have stood in front of a judge who has said, “You have been wronged and deserve to get full redress”, why should they then be limited to an annual salary? We are not talking about millions of pounds, but about someone who was on perhaps £40,000 a year, who has been out of work for two years, and who would be entitled under the old compensatory regime to the maximum £72,400. They will now receive only £40,000; they will fall into the
5% gap. If it is only 5%, we are really changing the system to prevent people from seeking proper justice on the basis of trying to deal with a perception problem, and I am not sure that that is how we should determine policies on such an important matter.John Healey: My hon. Friend is making a really important point. Whether one takes a pro-employer or pro-employee view—it is quite clear from the Government which side they are on—the effect of the measure is to restrict the jurisdiction of those sitting in the tribunals to be able to make compensatory awards, which are designed to give them the discretion to reflect the particular loss or problems that the people subject to unlawful action, and therefore a justifiable unfair dismissal claim, have a right to expect under the proceedings.
Ian Murray: My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. He speaks with great authority on such matters. There is a real problem here. If we look at the analysis of whether this is pro-business or anti-business, or pro-employer or anti-employer, there is a big anti-business element here. First, the number of discrimination claims, which is uncapped, would ultimately grow. Consider what has happened in the financial services sector in the City over the past 10 years. If someone is earning £2 million a year, there is absolutely no point in making an unfair dismissal claim for £72,300 at the old level, so they would make a whistleblowing or a discrimination case, which are open-ended. I suggest that, if anyone goes to a solicitor, a lawyer or an employment tribunal expert, and in the analysis it is decided that that individual should be winning a claim well in excess of the cap of 52 weeks, they would make another claim for either discrimination or whistleblowing.
I know that whistleblowing has been tightened up. I believe the Minister might be reflecting shortly on its effect in the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013, but there is that unintended consequence, which, in my view, is incredibly anti-business. If the order is supposed to provide business with the security that it wished to have in terms of what it might have to pay in an employment tribunal, the open-ended nature of the order now means that that particular safety net is taken away if someone cannot get the justice and compensatory elements that the judge determines they deserve.
There is another aspect. I mentioned this a few moments ago, because the Minister and I have been in Westminster Hall debates all day, so she may have heard some of this before. If she has, I am delighted—it might go in this time. There is a direct correlation between job insecurity and consumer demand. These are not my words, but those of the Minister of State, Department of Health, the hon. Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb), who held the position that the Minister currently holds. Six weeks before he took on that role, he wrote in The Daily Telegraph that doing anything that undermines job security and therefore consumer confidence would be crazy. I agree. This is a matrix of everything else that has happened in the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act, in the Growth and Infrastructure Act 2013 and in all the statutory instruments that have already been produced. It increases job insecurity, which damages consumer confidence, and ultimately affects the economy.
John Healey: I do not wish to interrupt my hon. Friend’s flow, but does he think that there is a connection between that letter to the Telegraph and the decision of the Prime Minister six weeks later to move the hon. Member for North Norfolk out of the job?
The Chair: Order. With reference to the statutory instrument, perhaps that is wide of the mark.
Ian Murray: With particular reference to the statutory instrument, the article in The Daily Telegraph was published six weeks before the hon. Member for North Norfolk got the job. The statutory instrument before us spawns from the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013. During our discussions in Committee on clause 12 of the Bill that became that Act, we discovered that there is a rather wonderful book on how to maximise compensation at an employment tribunal that was written by the hon. Member for North Norfolk—it was incredibly useful in our debates on that clause. As much as we admire and like the Minister, it is a shame that we are no longer able to hound the hon. Member for North Norfolk with his own book. Indeed, I am sure I deserve some of the profits from it, given that I have been plugging it for the past 18 months.
The measures have the potential to undermine the whole process. Pinsent Masons has done some work on how the unfair dismissal compensatory award scheme would work under the new cap. It says:
“We are slightly concerned that employers might get the wrong idea about it and that in reality they may therefore stop taking quite as seriously the processes involved in a dismissal and we really want to try and encourage employers that this perceived reduction in the financial exposure is not quite as beneficial a step as they might think.”
“It will be an exceptional case which benefits from this reduction in compensation.”
That ties in with the figure of 5% cited in the accompanying notes. What Pinsent Masons is saying is that those who will be most affected are those whose cases are most severe—those cases in which the highest compensation awards have been looked at. There may be unintended consequences of the policy, including an undermining of the process, a drive towards lowering the average award and possible discrimination.
I will finish by discussing the cumulative effect of all the Government’s changes. The House tends to deal with statutory instruments as they come along—we discuss them at length, vote on them and then go away before we come back for the next one. However, there is a real problem in this area because of the effects of all the changes that are being made, such as the change in the qualification period from one year to two and the provisions of the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act. The Opposition’s contention is that the Beecroft report is being implemented in full, by the back door, as either compensated no-fault dismissal, or indeed dismissal with no compensation.
I can demonstrate that with a small example. Imagine a worker on £30,000 whose employer says, in a settlement agreement—such evidence is not admissible in employment tribunals—“I will give you £4,000 to leave tomorrow; if you don’t accept that, for every day you do not, I will reduce it by £500.” Bearing in mind that their relationship with their employer has broken down, I would bet that
the majority of employees in that situation would decide simply to accept the offer for a number of reasons, all of which are based on recent legislation and the statutory instrument that we are considering.The individual would have to give up the £4,000 to go to ACAS Early Conciliation. However, the employer could decide that they do not want to play that particular conciliatory game, because there is a fee to be paid of £1,250. That is quite a lot of money for someone who has just lost a job, but the employee would pay that fee to get over the hurdle and into the employment tribunal system. They would then have to win the employment tribunal. However, on coming out of the back end of the tribunal, their compensation award would be limited to a year’s salary. If we take the whole thing in context, that seems to me very much like compensated no-fault dismissal. Pretty much anyone would decide that it was not worth taking the chance of going over all the legislative hurdles to get to the employment tribunal and then to get any compensation, so they would take the £4,000 and walk away. Redundancy is undermined as well, and there is also the overlay of the shares for rights proposals, which allow people to sign away their rights in any case.
The contention is that such legislation is designed to deal with a perception, but there is no evidence to back that up. The unintended consequences are considerable. This Government have ideologically attacked workers’ rights without any evidence, and this instrument is another ideologically driven, non-evidence-based piece of legislation that further undermines people’s rights at work. Mr Beecroft himself told the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Public Bill Committee that there was no evidence to distinguish any of the stuff in his report and that it was merely drawn from his experience of being in business. This Committee would do workers and businesses up and down the country a great service were we to vote against the order.
5.24 pm
Jo Swinson: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments and other Members for contributing to the debate. As I said earlier, all Governments, including the previous one, have agreed that there should be a limit on compensatory awards for unfair dismissal. I take the hon. Gentleman’s points on board, but his Government accepted that there should be a limit, which means that there will always be some individuals for whom their calculation of compensation will be greater than the limit. His point that that cannot be countenanced flies in the face of the fact that his Government accepted that there should be such a limit.
We are therefore left with a discussion about what that limit should be. The Government’s view is that 52 weeks of an individual’s pay is the right balance between giving adequate compensation to people who are unfairly dismissed, and giving certainty to businesses about their potential liability.
I want to respond to a few of the points made in the debate. The right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne asked which businesses were not in favour of a pay-based cap. As he will know from his time in government, respondents to consultations do not necessarily provide their views on the basis that they will be made public and attributed to them, so I am reluctant to name names without prior permission.
When we aggregate the responses for analysis and provide the Government’s response, it will be helpful to draw a distinction between business and trade union responses to get a feel about where different groups are coming from. The trade union responses to the consultation were not keen on the idea of changing the cap, and certainly not on the idea of having a salary-based cap, but business was wholeheartedly in favour—95% support from the business community is significant.
John Healey: I am not clear whether the Minister intends to give me an answer, so will she undertake to write to me? Will she confirm that, as is normal in a consultation on public policy, the respondents were invited to declare that they were happy for their response to be made public? Will she tell us how many of the 119 respondents—or however many she cited—said that they did not want their response to be disclosed? In particular, will she confirm which businesses were among the 5% that were not in favour? In passing, are any organisations representing employees’ interests in favour of the Government’s move to a salary-based cap?
Jo Swinson: I will happily write to the right hon. Gentleman with that information, a significant amount of which is already in the public domain. Business organisations such as the CBI, the EEF, the British Chambers of Commerce and the Institute of Directors are very much in favour, but I hope that he appreciates that I want to double check which respondents ticked the box about disclosure before setting out such information in public. I will give him and the rest of the Committee as much information as is appropriate, while respecting those who did not tick the box.
The hon. Member for Edinburgh South pointed out that we have been in debates in the Chamber and Westminster Hall all day, but he started late—he was not at this morning’s gift vouchers debate in Westminster Hall, although he was much missed. More seriously, he talked about whether employment legislation is the main barrier to growth. It is important to put this in perspective. I would not suggest that the main reason why we have difficult economic circumstances is employment law, but employers raise concerns about it with us. The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the rest of the Government are taking a whole host of actions to kick-start and boost the economy—infrastructure investment, the regional growth fund, protecting science funding, the industrial strategy, tax cuts for corporations, the new employment allowance to help employers with national insurance contributions and many others.
We need to do other things, but that does not mean that we should not look at how employment law can be improved. That sometimes involves changing existing legislation, and sometimes it is about introducing radical new changes, such as extending the right to request flexible working, which is very good for the economy, and shared parental leave. We have been reviewing employment law throughout the whole Parliament and we need to address perceptions and reality. One positive thing is that studies of how employers view UK employment law show that their perceptions of it have improved over the course of this Government.
Mr Aidan Burley (Cannock Chase) (Con): As a new employer since being elected, I was astonished to learn, when a member of staff left, that MPs are individually
responsible for paying any claims from employees. They are personally liable for whatever these are and £4,000, £5,000 or £6,000 is a lot of money when you are personally liable for these claims. That is something that colleagues might want to reflect on. [ Interruption. ] Well, if you do not know that you need to take out insurance, you are personally liable.5.30 pm
Jo Swinson: I thank my hon. Friend for his contribution. When people take on employees for the first time, there is a range of things that they need to be aware of and the Government are trying to make that easier for new employers. We are putting all that information into one place, through a portal on the gov.uk website, and working to improve it in terms of linking up with HMRC and other government services that new employers need. That is important, particularly because we know that perceptions of the burden of employment law and how much it is a problem are highest among those who do not actually employ people. Therefore we need to try to make sure we address that, so more people feel happy to take on new workers.
Ian Murray: When we had the fees debate, the Minister was unable to tell the House what the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills guesstimated would be the reduction in employment tribunals. Does she have a figure for how many employment tribunals she thinks this will reduce by?
Jo Swinson: All I would say is that it is very difficult to put exact figures on this. We are talking about individuals’ behaviour and introducing a raft of changes at the same time. The hon. Gentleman made a valid point in his contribution about needing to look at the changes the Government are making in the round. This means that when you introduce a host of changes, such as streamlining employment tribunals, introducing early conciliation and new assessment agreements, and having lots of different avenues whereby employers and employees have routes to resolve their disputes that do not result in an employment tribunal, it would always be difficult to pinpoint one specific measure and therefore what proportion of the reduction would be attributable to it.
Obviously, we will monitor the situation as these reforms come into play, to make sure that they operate as intended and that there are no unintended negative consequences which we would wish to deal with. So it is right to look at these employment law issues.
John Healey: I am glad to hear that the Government will monitor the impact of this. What are the negative consequences that she just talked about that would lead her to the view that this statutory instrument and this change is a mistake and needs to be reconsidered?
Jo Swinson: I am talking in general terms. We have not had that situation, so the right hon. Gentleman tries to take me down a hypothetical alleyway. Clearly, we want to make sure that employees who have been wrongly treated have access to justice—that is something which continues—and that employers have certainty about their obligations and access to good advice about how to discharge those obligations in a responsible and
constructive way. That is because we also know that good employment relations is good for growth, the economy and for business as well as for employees.We want to make sure that those things continue, so there is a host of things that we will measure. Government keep these things under review continually, but particularly when new changes have been introduced. We will want to look at the numbers of tribunals, at success, and at surveys about people’s experience. There is a range of areas where we can get data to look at and get the full picture.
The hon. Member for Edinburgh South was rather uncharitable when he made his accusations about Beecroft. It is fair to say that there were some high-profile proposals in the Beecroft report that were widely denounced by businesses and employees’ organisations alike. It is also true that the report contained a raft of recommendations, such as streamlining employment tribunal rules, that were not controversial, had a lot of agreement across the House and indeed the Government already had in train. So when the hon. Gentleman pulls out his figures, it is important to bear that context in mind.
In terms of the issues around the awards, we know that the average is around £5,000—the hon. Gentleman said between £4,000 and £6,000—but it is also worth noting that this is the basic and the compensatory award combined. It is not broken down. The new amount will not just be a year’s salary—to compare that with the £5,000. It will be the basic award, which is anything up to £13,500, depending on a range of factors to be determined on the facts of the case, plus the compensatory award of up to a year’s salary. Therefore it is arguable that those affected will be fewer than the one in 20 cases actually won at tribunal, or the roughly one in 400 who put in claims to tribunal. That is quite a conservative estimate.
The hon. Gentleman stated that he thought that the proposals were anti-business, because people would bring other claims for matters such as discrimination and whistleblowing to increase the level of awards to which they had access. That is always possible, but the point is that people can already do so. The latest employment tribunal annual report makes it clear that 70% of unfair dismissal claims are brought with other claims. An individual can bring such a claim alongside a claim for discrimination or whistleblowing if they have grounds to do so. It is unlikely that people who have no grounds for making such claims will suddenly start to bring them, because they are unlikely to succeed. Businesses do not think that the measure is anti-business, and they know what they are talking about when it comes to employment tribunals.
I have mentioned the wider context of things that we are doing to try to reduce problems in employment, particularly when disputes are involved. The draft order is part of a package that will be helpful and positive for employers and employees, because it will promote discussion and agreement, where possible, rather than allowing cases to end up in tribunals. That is the whole thrust of what we are trying to do. Of course, any legislation must consider properly the balance between fairness to employers and fairness to employees. We have discussed that well today, and I think that the draft order will help to improve the situation in future. I thank everyone for their contributions and commend the draft order to the Committee.
The Committee divided: Ayes 10, Noes 7.
AYES
NOES
Question accordingly agreed to.
That the Committee has considered the draft Unfair Dismissal (Variation of the Limit of Compensatory Award) Order 2013.