Andrew Griffith

My hon. Friend makes an important point, which I hope somebody on the Labour Benches will address. We have seen no analysis and we have no idea of the cost of this measure. Not a single business—not a single person who employs people—has come out and endorsed the removal of the cap. It is beyond me, I am afraid. Yet what is happening in our employment tribunals? On Friday, as I am sure the Minister knows, it was revealed that the delay and backlogs at the employment tribunal have reached their highest ever level. At the end of the most recent quarter, there were 515,000 open claims. Before anyone intervenes, let me say that I accept that much of that was inherited—[Interruption.] But before Labour Members laugh: the Government are making it worse. Merely since the Bill was introduced to this place, the claims backlog has increased by 65,000. They are doing nothing to address the backlog, which is going up every single month—I do not think they have even discussed it with their calamity of a Justice Secretary —and we know that they have carried out no impact assessment. It is extraordinary. The scrapping of the compensation cap for the highest paid will simply stoke the fire. I make it a rule not to learn lessons in how to run an economy from France, but even France introduced a cap on tribunal payments to tackle unemployment and encourage labour market dynamism. Perhaps we should take advice from closer to home: today the Health Secretary seems to be no fan at all of giving more powers to unaccountable unions.