A letter to the Editor of the Daily Telegraph which was published on 11th March 1994.

The award of yet another insanely high sum by an industrial tribunal (report, March 10th) underlines the urgent need for the Government to establish sensible rules for the “loss of earnings” computation at such hearings.

Following the awards of substantial sums to servicewomen who had children, we now have a girl of 17 awarded £24,000 because a local garage dared to choose a boy as an apprentice mechanic at £4,000 a year in preference to her.

Leaving aside the irrelevance of a pass in GCSE science for such a job, which the lady chairman of the tribunal seemed to think important, the tribunal seems to have worked on the basis that the loss of earnings is salary for the whole of a five-year apprenticeship.

But nobody has a guarantee of work for five years: most people’s notice period is a few months.  The girl in question could have walked out of her apprenticeship at any time, with the garage having no practical redress against her.

That the apprenticeship may have been for five years is as irrelvant to employment guarantees as is signing on for nine of even 22 years in the Services when compulsory notices are being handed out.

Every action has a reaction.  Given the tribunals’ record of grotesque favouritism, I doubt if there is a small businessman in the land who is not this morning reviewing very carefully the employment of females in jobs other than those where they are already established.