Sex bias tribunals are no longer a nice little earner

Last July a fee was intro duced to bring a claim for a dis crimination case. It now costs up to £1,250 to lodge a case although there are reductions for those who cannot afford the full fee. Figures published by the Ministry of Justice show the huge impact this has had.

Between April and June last year - the last three months before the fee came in - 6,310 sex discrimination claims were filed. In the same three months of this year - now with a fee - there were just 591 claims, a fall of 90 per cent.

There are two ways of looking at this: one sensible, the other...well, let's just say it's the explanation put forward by the unions and Chuka Umunna, Labour's business spokesman.

The sensible interpretation of this collapse in the number of cases is that the introduction of a fee has punctured the compensation balloon.

Recently High Court judge Mr Justice Mostyn rightly described the compensation culture as a "national phenom enon". It has grown unchecked for years. Now there's been a serious rolling back.

When employment tribunals were a free hit too many unscru pulous people grabbed the opportunity to bring frivolous cases. It was almost as if you'd have been depriving yourself of another source of income by not bringing a case.

TAKE pastry chef Chloe Maisey, who recently saw her 21 claims of sex discrimination against Gordon Ramsay's best man Stephen Terry thrown out by a tribunal, which found that she had left because she didn't like the long hours.

Almost anyone who has employed people knows how the compensation culture has warped things. Businesses often budget for fighting claims as part of their expenses. Claimants would bring a base less case in the expectation that they'd be offered some money just to go away and save the expense of fighting a claim. The sums involved are significant.

The average cost to a business - paperwork and lawyers' fees - for each case has been calculated at £8,500. And that's without the "go away" money, which can be in five figures.

A few years ago I was accused of sex discrimination myself when I had two candidates for an internal promotion. One, a woman, was so hopeless even for her existing job that she was on the point of being sacked - as she was well aware having been disciplined and handed a series of written warnings.

The other contender, a man, was well suited to the job. When I gave it to him the woman resigned (pre empting her sacking) and a few days later the sex discrimination claim came in.

The company chose to settle rather than spending more money on lawyers' fees and so she walked away with the com pany's cash for no other reason than her ability to play the system. A system that stank.

Now with the simple idea of a fee to bring a claim such behaviour has been dramatically reduced. It's not only sex discrimination claims that are down: race discrimination claims are down 60 per cent.

Overall 44,334 claims were made to tribunals between April June 2013. In the same period this year the figure was down to 8,540, a fall of 81 per cent. In other words it has worked. Big time. But no sensible policy is ever without its critics.

Step forward Chuka Umunna. According to him: "These new statistics show definitively that the system of employment tribunal fees put in place by the Government last year has erected a barrier to justice, locking out low paid workers and preventing them from defending their rights at work." See what I mean about polar opposite interpretations of the same facts?

Mr Umunna has reacted to the fall in cases by pledging that a future Labour government would abolish the fees. This man, remember, is hoping to be business secretary next May. His plan for helping businesses grow is deliberately to reshackle them with compensation claims.

This tells us all we need to know about Labour's attitude to business. If there's political capital to be made, if there are union paymasters to be appeased then business can be treated as a cash cow to be milked by cheats.

It also tells you much about Labour's cynicism. Mr Umunna is no fool. He must be aware that until the changes many cases were utter nonsense.

And he must be equally aware that there was another reform introduced alongside the fee: since May anyone who wants to go to an employment tribunal must now first go through an Acas negotiation, an early resolution hearing that is intended to try to settle the dispute without going to court.

That means compensation chasers who think putting in a claim will make the employer pay them to go away now have another hurdle in their way. It all helps. Yet Mr Umunna has chosen to pander to the unions who bankroll his party, telling the TUC that a Labour govern ment would abolish the fees to "ensure all workers have proper access to justice".

What drivel. This isn't about justice. Those with a serious case have as much access now as they had before the fee. The only change is that the com pensation chasers, who used the old system as a way to grab a quick buck, have been kyboshed. And the rest of us, who aren't in hock to the unions, are grateful for that.