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Employment Bill [Lords]

If the hon. Gentleman will allow me, I may come back to him on the precise date. Michael Gibbons also argued for an incentive for compliance with the ACAS code. Clause 3 gives tribunals the discretion to adjust awards upwards or downwards by a maximum of 25 per cent. where they find that parties have unreasonably failed to comply with the code. The provision is designed to encourage compliance, but I emphasise that it is a discretionary power for employment judges to apply in the circumstances of the case, without the rigidity of the previous automatic link to the statutory procedures. The Gibbons review concluded that better advice and guidance and greater availability of conciliation as early as possible in a dispute could enable there to be more resolutions without recourse to the tribunal.