Following on from our blog in January which outlined the three major political parties’ intentions in relation to employment law following the general election on 7 May, now that the full manifestos have been published, what more do we know about the main proposals?
You will probably all be aware that Employment Tribunal fees have been the subject of controversy since they were introduced in July 2013. Claimants are required to pay fees of up to £1,200 per case to run their claim, which the coalition government put into effect to try to reduce the cost burden on the Tribunals system. However, it was recently reported that the fees cover only 7% of the administrative costs, despite there being an 80% drop in issued claims. It is perhaps not surprising, therefore, that most of the major political parties have sought to address this issue, one way or another, in their published manifestos.
Conservatives
The Conservatives have largely focussed on what they view as their success in reducing the burden on employers from Tribunal claims (by increasing the qualifying service for unfair dismissal claims to 2 years and requiring Claimants to pay a fee to pursue their claim). The Conservatives aim to “continue to support UK businesses” and whilst they do not expressly state that the Tribunal system will remain in its current form, it is probably safe to assume that the Conservatives are not currently envisaging any further changes to the system, including to fees (although there has been talk of a “review” of the level of fees).
They are also seeking to further strip away regulation by reviewing the UK’s membership terms of the European Union and wish to continue to promote apprenticeships by creating more posts and helping more people into paid work.
Labour
Labour believe that the fees regime has created a significant barrier to justice for Claimants and have vowed to abolish the current Tribunal fee system.
The Labour party have vowed to abolish “exploitative” zero hours contracts by banning exclusivity clauses and introducing a right to a fixed hours contract after 12 weeks of regular working. They also want to introduce a new ACAS Code of Practice on zero hours contracts.
Labour also wish to crack down on perceived loopholes in the use of agency workers by removing the Swedish derogation from the Agency Worker Regulations 2010 and preventing employers from under cutting the wages of permanent staff by using cheaper agency workers. Finally, they have proposed to increase paternity leave to four weeks.
Liberal Democrats
The Lib Dems have vowed to undertake a general review of the enforcement of employment rights, which includes reviewing Employment Tribunal fees. Similar to the Labour party, their position is that they wish to ensure that fees are not a barrier to access to justice and have hinted that the current level of fees will be replaced by a nominal fee.
The Lib Dems are also seeking to add new “right to request” provisions for workers engaged under zero hours contracts to allow all workers to request a permanent contract of employment, regardless of their length of service.
Interestingly, they have also intimated at proposals to reform paternity rights for fathers. The Lib Dems want to allow fathers to take 6 weeks’ paternity leave (rather than the current 2 weeks which is on offer) in addition to the current Shared Parental Leave Regulations, extending the rights under that legislation to a total of 58 weeks’ shared leave for both parents.
Following on from the ban on pre-employment health checks, the Lib Dems are also considering “blank name” job applications to reduce the risk of discrimination occurring in the recruitment process.
UKIP
Aside from indicating an intention to “protect workers’ rights”, UKIP’s manifesto does not mention Tribunal fees at all. As expected, UKIP wish to remove EU Directives which affect the UK economy. In practice of course this would have a potentially very dramatic effect on UK employment law given that so many of the key employment protections are based upon EU Directives (although pulling out of the EU would not of course automatically disapply the UK Acts of Parliament which were based on those Directives).
Green Party
The Greens wish to “reduce” Tribunal fees to make the system more accessible to workers. They also wish to increase the minimum wage to £10 per hour by 2020 and similar to other manifestos, wish to ban the use of zero hours contracts.
Perhaps somewhat controversially, they also wish to introduce a gradually phased in of a maximum 35-hour working week to improve workers’ work-life balance and to create more jobs.
Plaid Cymru
Plaid Cymru have also promised a “review” of the fee system, but have not indicated whether they would seek to abolish the regime or not. Further policies include a pledge to impose the “living wage” for all employees by 2020 and to cut business rates for small to medium sized businesses to promote economic growth.
Scottish National Party
The SNP’s manifesto is certainly not weighted heavily in favour of Employment Law. They have, however, pledged to work towards a living wage, and want to increase the national minimum wage to £8.70 by 2020.
Summary
Overall the manifestos are relatively light on employment reform, which might be considered a good thing from a certainty point of view. The Labour Party are the party who have come closest to a firm promise to abolish Tribunal fees, although they are less specific on what would replace them (there is some ambiguity over whether just the current fees system would be abolished or whether the whole idea of paying a fee would be abolished). Of course, since it is quite possible that we may have a new coalition government it is also hard to predict how highly employment law matters will rank in the negotiations and trade offs that may be required to form a government (not very highly I would suspect).
In other developments on the issue of Tribunal fees, Unison were granted permission at the beginning of April to appeal against the High Court’s two rejections of their applications for judicial review into the fee system after the High Court found that there was insufficient evidence to demonstrate that fees were having a disproportionate, and unlawful, negative impact on particular groups (now evidenced, perhaps, by a 91% drop in sex discrimination claims). The Lord Chancellor had previously stated at the point of the first application for judicial review that he would reimburse all fees that have been paid if they are found to be unlawful, but it remains to be seen whether this would be the case going forward. It is thought that the fees judicial review case will be heard by the Court of Appeal in mid-June.
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