Employment Bill [Lords]

The emphasis has been on compliance. Now there will be an automatic penalty, and I have mentioned the extra money—£11.6 million—that the Chancellor has given the Department for extra enforcement. The hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Djanogly) implied—I do not blame him; we all get confused by statistics—that only 5 to 10 per cent. of employers will get a penalty. For the record, that is not the case. A civil penalty will be imposed in cases in which an enforcement officer identifies that the minimum wage has not been paid correctly to any worker. That contrasts with the current regime, under which a penalty is payable only if an employer fails to comply with an enforcement notice. That supports what I was saying about the emphasis on enforcement. The misunderstanding arises because the 5 to 10 per cent. are those cases in which arrears exceed £5,000, so there is the potential for a Crown court prosecution with unlimited fine. The hon. Gentleman also asked about the certification officer in relation to trade union powers. The certification officer has important powers to remedy failures by trade unions to follow their own rules. He can order a union to put right a breach of its rules, and that order is enforceable in the same way as a court order. The hon. Gentleman raised the issue of the report by the TUC commission on vulnerable employment, which was issued some weeks ago. My hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries and Galloway (Mr. Brown) also asked about that. The House may be aware that the vulnerable workers enforcement forum has met over the past year, chaired by my hon. Friend the Minister for Employment Relations and Postal Affairs. It includes representatives from the TUC, the CBI and the National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux, and from enforcement agencies. It has considered several important issues, such as the fear of reporting abuses, the lack of knowledge of to whom complaints should be reported, the co-ordination of enforcement between different Government agencies, and other issues of enforcement. The forum considered the issues and heard evidence from many of the bodies that I have mentioned, including citizens advice bureaux, trade unions and representatives of migrant workers and the construction and hospitality industries. It will report in the near future, perhaps before the summer recess. That is not definite, but is one possibility. The hon. Member for Brent, East (Sarah Teather), on behalf of the Liberal Democrats, raised the issue of the enforcement of employment tribunal awards. In most cases, such awards should be paid within 42 days of the judgment, unless the respondent decides to appeal the judgment. The exceptions are discrimination and equal pay cases, in which payment is due the day following the judgment. Unpaid awards may be enforced by application to the courts, in the same way as county court judgments, a system that will be streamlined by the provisions of the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007. The Ministry of Justice expects to introduce secondary legislation under the Act by April 2009 which will mean that if an award remains unpaid after 42 days claimants can go straight to enforcement in the county court or the High Court by a simplified route. The current Act separately provides for the tribunal to award compensation for the full financial loss in simple monetary terms—for instance, if credit card or mortgage payments fail because of the action of the employers. Research will be undertaken by the Ministry of Justice to clarify how many claimants do not receive their awards, and the contributing factors to the failure. I should also say that my hon. Friend the Minister for Employment Relations and Postal Affairs will be meeting representatives of the citizens advice bureaux on Wednesday to discuss further the evidence from citizens advice bureaux.