Baroness Kramer (LD)

My Lords, I would join with anyone who wants to speed up employment tribunals and cut the costs of going to them. I hope that is an agenda the Government will take on rapidly. We heard an unfortunate case of someone who is waiting until 2027; some people are waiting four years. I hope the Government will address that issue, but I cannot see that it is central to this Bill. I am not a legal expert, and many of the cases quoted are not ones that I know—I do not know any of them intimately. In my experience, at least with employment tribunal judgments, it is very unsatisfactory to sum them up in a single sentence. They usually have within them a great deal of complexity and a fair amount of nuance. Without going through those, I am in no position to assess the evidence that has been put before us today. I remain somewhat sceptical. I hope that we can get reassurance that people are genuinely protected because of their political views. I do not think anyone in this Committee would think it was right for someone to lose their job because they belong to one particular affiliation or another. I will look for the Minister to make that case and to explain the legal situation in far more depth than I can. I do not feel qualified to be more than somewhat sceptical.