Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many employment tribunal claims have been lodged against his Department for (a) unfair dismissal and (b) claims under the Equality Act 2010 in each of the last five years.

The Department has defined an employment tribunal claim as a formal submission which includes claims made against the Department, excluding arm's-length bodies, and submitted to an Employment Tribunal, for which the Department has responded by submitting a grounds for resistance. Early conciliations, which are the step ahead of a claim submission, are not included in this definition.

Employment Tribunal data is not readily available prior to 2023. As such, the Department only has access to employment tribunal information for the period of 2023 to 2025. During this period, six employment tribunal claims have been lodged citing unfair dismissal. Our records do not show claims listed with a specific reference to the Equality Act 2010.

We are unable to provide further information about specific years due to the low numbers involved in each year which could lead to the identification of individuals.