I will certainly undertake to look at that with the Minister for Skills and Equalities, my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles). We are aware of the issue that has arisen. The issue the hon. Lady surfaces—the shortage of women engineers—is severe, and we underperform much of Europe in that respect, with only one in 10 of our engineers being women. We are doing a lot to try to change the trend, but a substantial deficit remains.

The table below outlines the employee success rate at employment tribunals for the 12 month period a) before and b) after the introduction of fees on 29 July 2013.

The table shows the four quarters wholly before fees were introduced from July 2012 to June 2013, and the four quarters wholly after fees were introduced from October 2013 to September 2014.

Employment tribunal cases can be brought under a number of jurisdictions called complaints. Each jurisdictional complaint is decided separately within a case. The information provided is the number of jurisdictional complaints that were decided by an employment tribunal. Individual cases can have a number of outcomes for different jurisdictional complaints.

Employment tribunal outcomes are published quarterly at: www.gov.uk/government/collections/tribunals-statistics

¹ Claimant Successful includes Successful at Hearing and where a Default Judgment is made.

² Claimant Unsuccessful includes Unsuccessful at Hearing, Default Judgment Claimant Unsuccessful, Dismissed at Preliminary Hearing and case Struck Out

In October 2013, the CPS issued guidelines setting out a new approach to child sexual abuse cases. Steps to be taken include the use of specialist prosecutors, the provision of dedicated CPS units to manage such cases, and the application of a new approach to considering evidence in such cases. In 2013-14, the number of child abuse prosecutions rose by 440 to 7,998, and the conviction rate was 76.2%, which is the highest that it has ever been.

The hon. Lady is right to ask that question. We do keep such matters under review, and as she will appreciate, a large part of the process involves ensuring that prosecutors are properly trained and encouraged to do what the guidelines say they should do. We will ensure that they receive that ongoing training and updating, but I think that the signs are encouraging. I think that we are doing more of the things that we need to do to ensure that child witnesses, in particular, are accommodated properly in the court system, so that they can give the best evidence that they are able to give.

We do not disclose details of meetings between Ministers and Officials.

We do not disclose details of meetings between Ministers and Officials.

We do not disclose details of meetings between Ministers and Officials.

The hon. Lady raises an important issue. As she will be aware, there was a significant debate about this very thing early on in this Parliament. The Government have not yet responded to the Home Affairs Committee report—for understandable reasons, given that it has only just come out—but I was asked about the matter when I was in front of the Home Affairs Committee last week. This issue has to be dealt with on a case-by-case basis. I think that an assumption of anonymity on arrest is right in general, but there will be cases when it is right for the police to ensure that the name is put out so that other people can come forward to report crimes by the same perpetrator.

Experimental statistics on Employment Tribunal (ET) fees data taken from the administrative IT system built to process fee receipts and remission applications, were published for the first time on 12 March 2015, as an Annex to the Tribunal and Gender Recognition Statistics Quarterly, October to December 2014 publication. It is our intention to publish them on a quarterly basis from this point forward subject to further data quality work.

Due to the experimental nature of the statistics, the publication stated that additional analyses will be carried out to assess their quality and that of the administrative system the data are extracted from. Information on protected characteristics is collected by this employment tribunal fee and remission IT system. Subject to the results of data cleansing and quality assurance work to assess its coverage, robustness and usefulness, figures on protected characteristics will be included in future publications in due course.

Employment tribunal cases can vary in nature and complexity and some can last over more than one year, particularly where collective disputes are involved. Claims in employment tribunals can be classified into either single or multiple claims. Multiple claims are where two or more people bring proceedings arising out of the same facts, usually against a common employer. Where claims are grouped as multiples, they are processed administratively and managed judicially together. We call these groups of claims ‘multiple claims cases’. One multiple claim case would therefore involve two or more claims. Claims can be disposed of in a variety of ways, including being rejected either because they are out of time, or have no reasonable chance of success. A minority of cases are disposed of at a full hearing.

There are therefore many ways the term an employment tribunal case can be interpreted. The costs directly attributable to each claim / case are not collected, as current systems do not allow us to link staff, judicial and other costs to claims / cases. As a result, it is not possible to provide average costs per case over the last three years on a comparable basis.

It is not possible to provide the average costs to the public purse of an employment tribunals in the 12 months before and after the introduction of fees on a comparable basis, as explained in my answer to PQ 223678.

Following consultation over last summer, we issued statutory guidance under the Care Act 2014 in October 2014, which is available at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/care-act-2014-statutory-guidance-for-implementation

The guidance covers the purpose of an assessment and outlines what local authorities must do when conducting carers’ assessments and in providing support for their eligible needs.

We have also published guidance for local authorities on a ‘whole family approach’ to assessments, which will identify any children who provide care for a member of their family and put in place appropriate support for the carer, including for a young carer. The guidance is available at:

http://www.local.gov.uk/documents/10180/5756320/The+Care+Act+and+whole+family+approaches/080c323f-e653-4cea-832a-90947c9dc00c

My Rt. hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health has not had discussions with Minsters in the Department for Education (DfE). However, I have been fully engaged with my counterpart at DfE in relation to the provisions in the Care Act 2014 which affect young carers, and the inter-relation with the provisions of the Children and Families Act 2014.

The Care Act falls within the responsibility of the Department of Health and we issued statutory guidance under the Act last October. The DfE was closely involved in the development of the guidance in relation to issues affecting young carers.

The Government recognises that transition into adulthood is an important time when young people and their families are thinking about their goals and aspirations for the future and to ensure that they are not left without care and support. The Care Act, for the first time, places a legal duty on local authorities to assess the needs of young carers as they approach adulthood and that transition assessment and planning must consider how to support young carers to prepare for adulthood and how to raise and fulfil their aspirations.

The Care and Support (Assessment) Regulations 2014 require local authorities when looking at the needs of an individual, to consider the impact of those needs on any young carer involved in the situation and identify whether the tasks they are performing are inappropriate.

We have also published guidance for local authorities on a ‘whole family approach’ to assessments, which will identify any children who are involved in providing care. Identification of a young carer in the family should result in an offer of a needs assessment for an adult requiring care and support and where it appears that they may have a need for support.

My Rt. hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health has not had discussions with Minsters in the Department for Education (DfE). However, I have been fully engaged with my counterpart at DfE in relation to the provisions in the Care Act 2014 which affect young carers, and the inter-relation with the provisions of the Children and Families Act 2014.

The Care Act falls within the responsibility of the Department of Health and we issued statutory guidance under the Act last October. The DfE was closely involved in the development of the guidance in relation to issues affecting young carers.

The Government recognises that transition into adulthood is an important time when young people and their families are thinking about their goals and aspirations for the future and to ensure that they are not left without care and support. The Care Act, for the first time, places a legal duty on local authorities to assess the needs of young carers as they approach adulthood and that transition assessment and planning must consider how to support young carers to prepare for adulthood and how to raise and fulfil their aspirations.

The Care and Support (Assessment) Regulations 2014 require local authorities when looking at the needs of an individual, to consider the impact of those needs on any young carer involved in the situation and identify whether the tasks they are performing are inappropriate.

We have also published guidance for local authorities on a ‘whole family approach’ to assessments, which will identify any children who are involved in providing care. Identification of a young carer in the family should result in an offer of a needs assessment for an adult requiring care and support and where it appears that they may have a need for support.

The current fee remission scheme was introduced in October 2013, which established a single fee remissions scheme across all courts and tribunals of HMCTS (including the Employment Tribunals but excluding proceedings in the Immigration and Asylum Tribunal) and the UK Supreme Court.

The gross monthly income test, which was introduced following a consultation exercise, is designed to ensure that fee remissions are targeted to those who need them most. Those on qualifying benefits, including Income-related Employment and Support Allowance, Income Support, Income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance and Pension Credit Guarantee credit are automatically entitled to a full fee remission, provided they also meet the disposable capital test.

The Minister for Welfare Reform and Minister for Disabled People meet with HSE officials on a regular basis. Other Ministers also meet with HSE officials on specific issues.

HM Courts & Tribunals Service collects information on the protected characteristics of those making a claim to the employment tribunals via the Diversity Monitoring section of the application form ET1. The form and questions can be found at http://hmctsformfinder.justice.gov.uk/courtfinder/forms/et001-eng.pdf.

Small businesses can be hamstrung by unfounded employment tribunal claims and taxpayers should not have to pick up the £74 million bill for running the service.

We have made sure fee waivers are available for those who cannot afford to pay, as well as diverting people away from potentially acrimonious hearings, where possible, through a new early conciliation scheme which has already been used by 37,000 people in its first six months.

The Government has committed to review Employment Tribunal fees but believes this is better determined by the new Administration following the Election.