Consultation on Employment Tribunal fees

Those of you with longer memories can probably recall that for a brief period of time the Government introduced fees in Employment Tribunal and Employment Appeal Tribunals.  These were previously then overruled by the Supreme Court in July 2017.  The Ministry of Justice have now opened a consultation on re-introducing fees in the Employment Tribunal and in the Employment Appeal Tribunal.  The proposal to introduce fees is intended to improve matters in the following ways :-

1. To relieve some of the cost to the tax payer;
2. To encourage parties to use ACAS Conciliation to avoid fees; and
3. Potentially bring down some of the claims to alleviate some of the pressures on the Employment Tribunal system.

We will keep you updated on this proposal.  We would certainly welcome such a development as it would help to weed out vexatious claims. Whether it is eventually brought into law may, of course, depend upon what happens in Parliament and the result of the next General Election.