Caroline Lucas – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Caroline Lucas on 2014-06-11.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, with reference to his Department’s press release of 1 November 2013 entitled Government considering new powers to tackle non-payment of tribunal awards, what progress he has made in considering the various policy options for improving enforcement of unpaid employment tribunal awards.

Jenny Willott

It is wrong that where an Employment Tribunal has found in favour of a claimant and ordered that an award should be made to them by the respondent, so few awards are actually paid.

The Government is committed to tackling this issue and there is already a lot of work underway. We are aware, however, that there is no single solution and are instead working on a number of different measures to ensure that people get what they are owed. We will be able to say more about developments in this area shortly.