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Employment Bill [Lords]

Is not my hon. Friend being characteristically generous in his comments about the Government? Did not a 1994 Green Paper include the proposal, although the Conservative Government did not go ahead with the idea of internal procedures having to be dealt with first? Ian Lang, the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, said at the time that the"““the reservations expressed by many responding to the Green Paper that the proposal to require employees to attempt to resolve disputes with their employers before being able to make an application to an industrial tribunal might lead to increased delays and complexity in tribunal procedures, rather than alleviating them.””—[Official Report, 20 November 1995; Vol. 267, c. 20W.]" In other words, he got it right three or four years before Labour came to power.