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Employment Bill [HL]

My Lords, I, too, support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Borrie. Clearly this is a delicate issue, with arguments finely balanced on both sides, and I welcome the fact that the noble Lord, Lord Borrie, has watered down the amendment that he originally proposed in Committee to try to meet some of the concerns coming from the CBI and the EEF in particular. Two points are persuasive with me. First, as the noble Lord states, in principle it is strange that there should be any difference between the settlement of cases in employment tribunals and the settlement of cases in the High Court. We have reached the stage where, clearly, the employment tribunals provide just as significant a role in our judicial procedure as do the courts. Therefore it would seem odd that there should be any difference in the way these issues are treated. Secondly, on the figures, as Public Concern at Work has demonstrated, in 2005-06 there were 1,000 PIDA cases, of which at least 600 or 700 were settled. The ones that went to the tribunal went to litigation, effectively; for those, we know the information that the noble Lord, Lord Borrie, is requesting but for the others we do not. That seems strange in the balance of life. I therefore support the noble Lord’s amendment.