Tempting as it is to try and get through a whole page without mentioning either ‘referendum’ or ‘Brexit’, having wracked my brains for the last hour or so, that does not seem possible. Many commentators said that the referendum was the most important question ‘the People’ would be asked to address in a generation and they were not wrong. It is difficult to think of anything else that could produce not ripples, but tidal waves, in such a short period of time.

Since I last wrote we have lost and gained a Prime Minister; we have a new Cabinet; and we have a contest for the leadership of the Labour Party. And all of that is before the Article 50 notice has been triggered to leave the European Union. And no-one has yet even started to negotiate on either the UK’s terms of exit, or what the post-membership-of-the-EU landscape will look like.

The campaign and jostling for position since the referendum has produced some surprising conversions, a number of almost Damascene proportions. Advocates of austerity have become friends of the public services; confirmed small-state tax-cutters have been pledging literally hundreds of millions of pounds in extra state spending; and some politicians with long records of Euroscepticism have told us how much they like the EU (although not more than 7.5 on a scale of 1 to 10).

One of the conversions that will have made employment lawyers sit up and think is an apparent change of attitude by the Government towards employment law. During the coalition years, the Government seemed to be hostile. Employment law was lumped in with all the other ‘regulation’ that was stifling business; something that needed to be cut back so that business could flourish and economic growth restored. That produced a real reduction in employment rights, from the extension of the qualifying period for the right not to be unfairly dismissed, through to caps on compensation and the introduction of fees for bringing employment tribunal claims.

One of the features of the referendum campaign was an echo of this attitude: the need to extricate UK business from the dead hand of EU regulation. Similar comments were made about working time, equality legislation and EU-derived employment laws ‘scaring’ employers from employing any one and holding the country back.

In the post-referendum world – or so we are assured by the people put in charge of the Brexit team – employment regulation is not in the frame to be reduced and Britain (or England and Wales, depending upon Scotland’s path) will not become an off-shore, low-employment protection economy on the edge of Europe. It will be some comfort for employment lawyers to hear that, albeit coupled with a muttered, ‘Hmm...let’s wait and see.’

What will be of less comfort to employment lawyers is the continuing debate on tribunal fees and the Government’s stance on releasing the near-mythical review it undertook on their impact. Harsh words were dished out by the select committee on the Government’s failure to release it – even to the committee – and it was unconvinced by both the explanations given and the ever-changing timetable. The following Parliamentary debate on fees demonstrated that the Government’s position has not really changed and that there is no real acceptance of the impact fees have had on access to justice.

Government departments do not exist in separate bubbles, each independent of each other. Most people expect to see a ‘joined-up’ approach and some consistency on policy. At present there seems to be little consistency between the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (responsible for UK employment law); the Ministry of Justice (responsible for tribunals and fees); and the Ministry for Exiting the European Union (which will negotiate whether EU law will continue to apply in the UK as part of its exit arrangements). Perhaps some form of union should be agreed between the three.

Alex Lock, DAC Beachcroft LLP