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Lord Razzall: My Lords, perhaps I may suggest that the Minister omit those pages of reply.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I am supposed to omit them.
Lord Wedderburn of Charlton: My Lords, if my noble friend will allow me to intervene, I understand that my noble friend Lord McCarthy was urgently summoned by Hansard.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I am not criticising him in any way. I see he is back in his place and that has added five minutes to my speech!
I wanted to say that his formulation was rather apposite and which I can paraphrase as being: I engage in constructive criticism; you are critical and he is a wrecker. There were not quite any wreckers here, or at least not in the open. So it becomes particularly complicated to respond to the variety of interesting and well thought-out points that have been made.
Let me start by referring to what the noble Lord, Lord Henley, said in relation to small employers. There was an implied criticism of my noble friend Lord Sainsbury for being a large employer. The noble Lord, Lord Henley, should know that we have divided the work between us. I spent 30 years as a small employer, starting with no employees at all and ending up with only around 35.
Lord Henley: My Lords, if the noble Lord will give way, there was no criticism whatever of the noble Lord, Lord Sainsbury, for having been a large employer in the past. I have every admiration for large employers. I just think that their interests are different from those of small employers.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, they may well be, which is why we have representatives of both kinds of employer on the Government Front Bench on this occasion.
However, leaving the personal qualifications on one side, let me immediately turn to the open criticism expressed particularly by the noble Baroness, Lady
Miller, about the ethos of the Bill, which she described as being the ethos of a compensation culture. That is far from the analysis that we make of the Bill.
Baroness Miller of Hendon: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for giving way. I thought I made it perfectly clear that we welcomed Parts 1, 2 and 3 of the Bill. We had some problems with Part 4. When the noble Lord reads Hansard he will see that I was talking about the number of tribunals. I referred in part to compensation and in part to the shortening of the qualifying period. I did not describe the Bill in that way at all.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, indeed I accept that entirely. I noted with great pleasure that the noble Baroness was supporting Parts 1, 2 and 3, though not all of her colleagues were quite as favourable to significant parts of the Bill.
The noble Baroness, Lady Miller, asked specifically about the development of the tribunal system. She was worried about the tribunal system being over-loaded and its capacity being increased by the size of the claims. But the median award for unfair dismissal, for example, was only £2,700 in the last full year. When we consider that the average week's pay is £450, the noble Baroness will agree that that is a very low figure. If anybody is tempted to go to a tribunal on the basis of the possibility of large profits, they will be sadly disappointed. I do not believe that that is a significant basis for people going to tribunals.
A number of noble Lords—the noble Lord, Lord Henley, and my noble friend Lord McCarthy from a rather different point of view—commented on the increase in the numbers of tribunal cases and their costs. I can confirm the figures given by the noble Lord, Lord Henley, in relation to the increase and my noble friends Lord Wedderburn and Lord McCarthy spelt them out. But that is not the Government's fundamental concern in putting this legislation forward. That is not the reason why we are doing it. That is not the way in which we understand the increase in tribunals' business and I shall be coming to that point in more detail later.
Lord McCarthy: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for giving way. Can he explain why in Routes to Resolution it says it is?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I shall spend a good deal of time discussing exactly that matter. I am introducing it only in the context of the burdens on business which was the starting point of the first speeches.
I shall move on immediately—clearly noble Lords are impatient for later parts of my speech—and deal with the family-friendly aspect of the Bill. It is good to say that that achieved wide support from virtually everybody in the House, with the exception of the noble Lord, Lord Henley, who appears to be opposed to the paternity leave provisions. I notice that his opposition is not shared by his own Front Bench and I take some comfort from that.
The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Hereford made some particularly welcome remarks in relation to paternity and adoption leave. He made an interesting point about the possibility of an extension to extended family adoption. I can see there may be difficulty in the definition of that. But he will know that in November last year the Government announced an examination of civil partnerships—what the French call "pacs". Clearly there are wider implications, not just for the issues covered in this Bill, but also for issues such as benefits and pensions. It is better that that review takes place and be taken into account.
I understand the concern of the right reverend Prelate about both parents working and the consequent effect on family life. But there is considerable misunderstanding on this shared by the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, and the noble Lord, Lord Sharman. Alan Johnson made it clear at Second Reading in another place that there is nothing here which will force anybody into work. When the work focus interviews include partners, they are designed to improve the match between the potential labour force and jobs available. There is no element in the Bill of what the Americans call "work fare".
The noble Baroness, Lady Miller, made a point about the contributions and benefits Act. That is the Social Security Contributions and Benefits Act 1992. It is spelt out in full in the previous clause in the Bill.
My noble friend Lord Davies made some interesting points about the issue of payment during paternity and adoption leave for those earning below the lower earnings limit. He suggested that there should be a percentage of average weekly pay. It is not possible to deal with that problem in the Bill, but we believe that the solution is an amendment to the existing benefits system. We will amend the income support regulations for those entitled to paternity leave but not to statutory paternity pay. In relation to the problem of speed of settlement, the target for the Benefits Agency is 12 days, though their average is actually better than that.
The noble Lord, Lord Sharman, wanted us to take the opportunity to clear up anomalies in the maternity regulations. The working time regulations apply to all of those situations—maternity leave, paternity leave and adoption leave—and in particular they provide for the accrual of holiday entitlement, which was one of the issues with which he was concerned.
I turn to what is the major area—justifiably so—of controversy in the Bill. I was asked by my noble friends Lord Lea, Lord McCarthy and others whether we want fewer cases going to tribunals. We do. But we do not want that at the price of anybody's individual rights nor at the risk of employees not being able to make valid and reasonable claims. We do not want the reduction because we feel that there is a large number of vexatious claims. The figures are well known on that. Nowhere in the Bill is there a proposal that there should be a denial of the right to go to employment tribunals. We do however think that where possible—I stress the words "where possible"—there should be
settlement by agreement. We believe that that is to the benefit of both employers and employees. To that extent I hope that our intentions are the same as those of the noble Lords, Lord Wedderburn, Lord McCarthy, and others who have spoken. But I must emphasise in particular to the noble Lord, Lord Lea, that resolution by agreement in the workplace does not prevent a tribunal claim. He used the phrase "prohibition on access to justice" and the noble Lord, Lord Wedderburn, talked about unmeritorious applicants. Unmeritorious applicants do not, and never have, constituted a significant feature in our thinking. What we want is off-line settlement of as many disputes and claims as possible, as I say, for the benefit of both employers and employees.
Lord Lea of Crondall: My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt at this point and I am grateful to my noble friend for giving way. However, when he says that there will be an emphasis on making provision for agreement, will he not reflect that that may well require some amendment to the Bill as it stands at the moment?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I do not believe so but we shall study with great care any amendments that are tabled, as we do with any subject. I ought now to turn to something which exercises the minds of a number of noble Lords; that is, the evidence on which it is claimed we are putting forward this legislation. The noble Lord, Lord Razzall, said that we had claimed that 62 per cent of cases could have been resolved outside tribunals.
The noble Lords, Lord McCarthy and Lord Wedderburn, both gave considerable expositions of the survey of employment tribunal applications as if that was the fundamental reason and justification put forward by the Government for this legislation. I am a survey researcher by trade and I read the survey with some care. I do not believe that the interpretations which have been put on the survey by noble Lords this afternoon stand up or are justified. Some other interpretations may have been made in public which are not justified, but my noble friend Lord Sainsbury made it clear on 5th February in response to a Starred Question just what that survey does and does not say. The survey is a survey of applicants to employment tribunals. It says nothing, because it knows nothing, about cases which have not gone to industrial tribunals. If I were to make decisions about industrial tribunals, I should want to know about the cases which did not get there. The survey is not adequate for that purpose.
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