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Baroness Gould of Potternewton: My Lords before the noble Lord sits down, perhaps I may ask him a question. At the beginning of his speech, he said that past legislation has failed. He went on to give us explicit details of the problem. If it has failed, what is the solution? If we should not have specific legislation, how do we ensure that legislation works?

Lord Rotherwick: My Lords the noble Baroness, Lady Gould, raises a good question, and one that employers and government would have managed to address if it was not difficult. The problem of bullying is a real problem to business in as much as it will lose it competitiveness, but in balance with that, the complexity of introducing more legislation—and the fact that in the past, targeted legislation has not succeeded—poses a problem. I for one do not feel competent or qualified to suggest which way we should go. I only raise the questions as I see them.

10.1 p.m.

Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, everyone who has taken part will join me in thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Gibson, for the way in which she introduced this Private Member's Bill. She did it so well that she achieved almost universal support—at least for the principle behind the measure. She deserves the thanks and congratulations of the House.

I must start, as in all cases of Private Member's Bills, by saying that the Government do not take a formal view for or against the Bill. We shall certainly take no

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steps to oppose its progress through your Lordships' House. I say that without any regard to the merits or otherwise of the Bill.

Having said that, the noble Baroness knows as well as I do that, in its election manifesto, the Labour Party made a commitment to tackling this problem. The manifesto states:


    "We are committed to working with managers and employees to reduce the problems of bullying and violence in the workplace. As a major employer"—

by that, we mean as a public sector employer—


    "our ambition is to improve the quality of work for our employees—helping recruitment and retention".

So we share the objective of the noble Baroness and have behind it a practical objective, as it were, because we believe that good relations and a good culture in the workplace are beneficial not only for the individuals concerned but for society and the economy.

It is my duty to say how seriously we take bullying at work, how strongly we condemn it and that we consider that a combination of legislative action and of an approach to the culture of bullying and harassment at work must be the solution to the problem.

Let me start with the legislative side and existing law. The laws already in place cover a wide range of definable and undesirable behaviour. In effect, we have pinpointed specific issues and legislated against them. The list includes the Sex Discrimination Act 1975, the Race Relations Act 1976 and the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, which all include provisions on harassment. Then there is the Protection from Harassment Act 1997, the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 and the Employment Rights Act 1996, which includes constructive dismissal provisions—an issue to which I shall return.

All of those laws provide protection and enable individuals to seek remedies as a result of detrimental behaviour against them. Indeed, we are considering extending those measures and have been consulting on the provisions of the Article 13 directive, which would extend protection on the grounds of religion and other issues.

I have listened carefully to what has been said about the inadequacies of these laws. The noble Baroness, Lady Barker referred to discrimination against a young woman and a young man and to the fact that, under existing legislation, only the young woman had a remedy. That is certainly a valid point. However, I want to turn to what is proposed, and in particular to the proposals regarding grievance procedures in the Employment Bill which is before this House.

The Dignity at Work Bill calls for employers to have procedures in place whereby employees can bring complaints to them about their treatment. The Employment Bill contains important provisions to ensure that all employees have access to a grievance procedure. That is a major advance. We estimate that six million employees should benefit either because their employers presently have no procedures, or because they have procedures which are inferior to the proposed new statutory minima.

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The application of the new statutory procedures as an implied term in all contracts of employment should provide an important means for employees to raise their problems at work and to have them addressed by their employer at an early stage. That is likely to build on, and strengthen, the code of practice for discipline and grievance procedures produced by ACAS which can be taken into account at an employment tribunal. ACAS recommends that employers have this or a similar code in place and provides a national advice helpline service for employers and employees in addition to guidance booklets on bullying and harassment.

I turn now to the issue of constructive dismissal. Employees who have not been expressly dismissed but who consider their employers to be in fundamental breach of contract may be entitled to resign and regard themselves as having been forced to do so by the employer's breach of contract. Subject to the necessary qualifying service, they may then be able to make a complaint of unfair dismissal to an employment tribunal. A mutual duty of trust and confidence is implied in all contracts of employment. If this breaks down because of an employer's unacceptable conduct, or indeed because of conduct that takes place for which the employer has a duty of care, the employee may be able to claim constructive unfair dismissal under the Employment Rights Act 1996. Constructive dismissal is a complex area of employment law: whether an employee has been constructively unfairly dismissed is a matter which only employment tribunals can determine in the light of all the circumstances.

I do not claim that the legislative position as I describe it—at present and as proposed—covers the range of remedies which this Bill would provide. It is the case that the law only covers specific and definable areas of undesirable behaviour. That is the crux of the matter. Bullying is extremely hard to define. I agree that there may be cases where people feel aggrieved and upset, but their treatment may be hard to define in law. The crucial point is that what is bullying to one person may not be bullying to another. It relates to the culture of the workplace and how the individual reacts to this treatment.

As the debate has made clear, this is a very subjective and complex issue. I believe that a large proportion of cases will be covered by the law as it is and as it will be; but that does not mean to say that we should not act to prevent other cases from slipping through the net of legislation.

What I am saying is that further legislation would not necessarily help to clarify people's feelings or reactions to situations. It would not necessarily help the individual to find a remedy. So we are taking action specifically on the issue of bullying, intended to tackle the root cause of bullying in the first place—that is, the culture in the workplace. I do not claim that this is legislative action. I am saying that this is complementary to legislative action.

The Government are working with the Health and Safety Executive to develop management standards which may, in time, form the basis of a code of

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practice. The standards are designed to help managers develop policies to tackle bullying and to improve relationships in the workplace. Of course, this will not affect the bad employers. But I do not believe that this Bill, with all its merits, will work in practice to eradicate bullying in the workplace. We all agree on the objective of eradicating bullying, but we disagree about how to achieve that. It is better to publicise the existing laws, take steps—as we are doing—to improve access to better grievance procedures and promote a better culture at work. That is the Government's approach, and I hope that it will be felt that we are not, in any sense, unsympathetic to the objectives of the Bill.

Lord Wedderburn of Charlton: My Lords, my noble friend the Minister mentioned the Bill that is in its eighth day in Grand Committee. I have just been reading Hansard. Would the Minister confirm that the matters on which he relied so strongly—understandably—in Schedule 2, namely, the procedures that, as he rightly said, are implied in every contract, have been a matter of much discussion in Committee? The House should know that, during those discussions, the Government agreed to consider again the structure and detail of Schedule 2 and the statutory procedures over the Easter recess.

Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I can certainly confirm that those matters were the subject of exhaustive debate in Grand Committee. As with so many points raised in Committee, the Government have indicated a willingness to consider them before Report.

10.11 p.m.

Baroness Gibson of Market Rasen: My Lords, it is late, and I shall be brief. I sincerely thank noble Lords for their contributions.

I thank my noble friend Lady Gould of Potternewton for her exposition on bullying and its effects and the complexity of the current legislation. My noble friend Lord Lea of Crondall related the Dignity at Work Bill to the Employment Bill. I am sure

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that those of us involved in the Employment Bill will consider what he said further. I know that my noble friend, Lord Wedderburn of Charlton, came in particularly to take part in this debate. I thank him sincerely. His vast knowledge of employment law is second to none. I appreciate his contribution.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, for her kind words and for her well researched, thoughtful and helpful speech. She raised a query about customers and clients. The answer is that I am not sure about that matter; I shall take it away and consider it further.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Rotherwick, for speaking in the debate. He gave instances of anti-bullying policies. I am pleased that they are in place. I wish that there were more of them. The noble Lord raised the question of the burden on small businesses. I am very aware of that issue. My grandparents and my father were in small businesses, so I am aware of the burdens on them. However, I believe that, if legislation is clear, it helps smaller employers. The current procedures lack clarity and specificity. If we bring in a Bill of this kind—it is much clearer, as noble Lords have said—it would help smaller employers.

I thank my noble friend the Minister in particular for the way in which he responded. I am afraid that I remain convinced that the current law is inadequate. I assume that, when the Government promised in our manifesto to stop bullying, they did not think that it was too difficult to define. I did not think that the Bill would ever totally eradicate bullying; no legislation could. We still have sex and race discrimination. However, the Bill would help.

Finally, a number of points were made in relation to amendments to the Bill. They will be most welcomed by me in Committee. The Bill was never written in blood on a stone and I shall appreciate any amendments which noble Lords believe will assist it as it goes through the House. I ask the House to give it a Second Reading.

On Question, Bill read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

        House adjourned at a quarter past ten o'clock.

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