Government plans to reintroduce fees for employment tribunal claims

The Government is planning to reintroduce fees for employment tribunal claims seven years after they were judged to be unlawful by the Supreme Court.

The Ministry of Justice is now seeking views on the proposals in a consultation document, Employment Tribunals and the Employment Appeal Tribunal

The document says the Government has learned the lessons of the Supreme Court judgement.

 “The Ministry of Justice recognises that the fees introduced in 2013 did not strike the right balance between meeting the policy objective for claimants to meet some of the costs of the ET and EAT and protecting access to justice.

“Therefore, in developing the fee proposal subject to this public consultation, careful consideration has been given to the lessons learned following the Supreme Court judgment, especially in relation to affordability, proportionality and simplicity as the three key principles underpinning a fair and balanced approach to setting fees in the ET and the EAT.”

These are the main proposals:

Employment Tribunal Claims

• Introducing a £55 issue fee that is payable by the claimant on bringing a claim to the ET.
• Where a claim is brought by multiple claimants, the fee would remain at £55 and ‘the claimant’ would be treated as a single entity. The cost of the fee could therefore be divided among all the claimants involved, as agreed between them.
• As the government is not proposing to charge a hearing fee, the £55 issue fee will cover the entire journey of a claim in an ET.

Employment Appeal Tribunal

• A £55 fee payable by the appellant upon lodging an appeal in the EAT, through the EAT Form 1 (Notice of Appeal).
• A fee of £55 would be payable per judgment, decision, direction or order of an ET being appealed. For instance, if a notice of appeal includes appeals against two ET decisions, the total fee payable would be £110.

The public consultation on the proposals ends on 25 March. Anyone wishing to comment can submit their views via email, [email protected]

We shall keep clients informed of developments.

Please contact us if you would like more information about the issues raised in this article or any aspect of employment law.