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Employment Bill [HL]

I think noble Lords have a point about the wording, and I would like to take that back. I have tried to explain what we mean. I do not agree with my noble friend Lord Wedderburn on this occasion about deemed consent being somehow a step too far. There will always be a remedy for someone who legitimately did not receive a letter asking whether he consented. Later he can come back and say that he did not receive the letter and he wants the tribunal to have three members and not one, so his consent would be necessary. Deemed consent, as well as consent that is expressed, seemed to us to be the best alternatives to get justice done quickly in monetary claims. I am not saying that they are not important, but they are not the most difficult or sophisticated of tribunal claims. As the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner, knows, some of them are very difficult claims and should not be heard by a chairman. If that satisfies the noble Lord, Lord Wedderburn, I have done my best to respond. We will look again at the wording as far as Clause 12 is concerned, but I think we will want to have something in there, whether it is these words or other words. We will come back to it.