Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)

My Lords, I support the amendments in this group in the name of my noble friend Lord Sharpe of Epsom. Looking at Clause 113, I am put in mind of the pre-exploration exhortation of Colonel Kurtz: “The horror! The horror!”. As an employment lawyer looking at this clause, I can say that it is a complete Horlicks. It is truly bizarre. Can the Minister say why this power is required? Who should decide whether the Secretary of State should intervene in a person’s right to bring proceedings? Why should that choice be taken away from them? If the Secretary of State decides to bring proceedings, how would the Secretary of State compel the person who did not want to bring proceedings to give evidence in their own claim that they are not bringing? Why would the judge decide that the claim should be allowed to succeed, in the absence of evidence from the person whose claim it is? Then there is the question as to why the taxpayers of this country should bring proceedings in the name of somebody who does not want to bring them, possibly against a public sector employer who then has to pay to defend those proceedings to make an award of damages to a person who does not want to claim damages. All this is absolutely beyond belief. Furthermore, I noticed that it is a discretion: “the Secretary of State may, in place of the worker, bring proceedings about the matter in an employment tribunal under the enactment”, which appears to relate to any enactment in the entire employment canon. There is no explanation as to the test the Secretary of State is going to apply in making that discretion. That exercise of discretion will plainly be subject to judicial review. If the Secretary of State chooses not to exercise their power, no doubt there will be satellite litigation in the High Court—brought by the unions, I suspect—as to why the Secretary of State has not chosen to bring a claim on behalf of somebody who they think should have had their claim brought by the Secretary of State. Applying the usual tests, I suppose it will be said that it was irrational not to bring the claim or it was in breach of some legitimate expectation that their claim would be brought. It seems to me that that whole delight now lies before the Committee as to whether there should be litigation on behalf of somebody who does not want to litigate. This is simply an absurd and inverse world of mirrors that, frankly, Lewis Carroll in Through the Looking-Glass would not have believed was possible. The lunacy of it is notable in Clause 113(5), whereby a worker can appeal against the outcome in a claim when he did not even want to bring a claim. This is so badly thought out that it should clearly be withdrawn.