Employment tribunals are more vulnerable to AI than other bits of Britain’s legal system because, by design, they are open to the layperson. They were established in the 1960s to resolve disputes quickly and cheaply—a “people’s court”, as one judge put it, without the stuffiness of the Old Bailey. There is no fee to bring a case and, unlike other civil courts, the losing side rarely pays its opponent’s bills. Nor is there a penalty for rejecting a decent offer of settlement. The upshot, says David Green, an employment barrister, is there is no financial mechanism to make parties think hard about the merits of their case. And AI slop is not an automatic disqualification. Judges have held that badly presented cases deserve a full hearing if they might contain a real grievance. Striking out a claim is no alternative to “rolling up one’s sleeves” and probing its merits, found Judge James Tayler in a 2021 ruling—even if the claimant uses the wrong terms or acts like a “rabbit in the headlights”. This open system is about to become more so. Since the 1960s the scope of the employment tribunal has swelled to over 100 different grounds on which an employer can be sued. The new Employment Rights Act adds around 25 more, such as the right to be paid for shifts cancelled at short notice. From January 2027 unfair-dismissal claims can be brought after six months’ employment, rather than two years. And the cap on compensation for most claims of £123,543 ($166,050) will be scrapped. For prospective claimants this means more pretexts on which to bring a case and the hope of a bigger prize. The government forecasts that the act will result in a 17% rise in legal disputes; many lawyers think far more. “Every factor points to more litigation, and more complex and high-value litigation,” says Tarun Tawakley of Lewis Silkin, a law firm. In the hands of AI, the prospect of uncapped compensation may give people an unrealistic idea of what they stand to win, reckons Sarah Henchoz of A&O Shearman, another law firm. (AI is already inflating compensation claims, Mr Clarke reports.) “Much like Googling a medical condition, with legal advice you’ll get the answer you want based on what you put in,” Ms Henchoz says. Britain now looks less attractive to employers than France, she notes, where compensation is usually capped at 20 months’ pay.
Specialist AI may fix the slop. It can now beat human lawyers at tasks such as drafting, trials suggest. This year an AI law firm was credited with preparing a successful employment case for a human barrister. Algorithms could soon give prospective claimants a more realistic picture of whether their case will succeed. The challenge is getting enough training data, says Felix Steffek of Cambridge University, whose team has built a database of 19,000 historical cases for this end. That would make judges’ lives easier. But it would present employers with a different problem. If AI fulfils its promise, it could before long give every worker the equivalent of a top-flight lawyer in their pocket, able to file precisely constructed cases against their bosses at will. A deluge of slop claims could give way to a wave of winning ones. Labour said its act would shift power from employers to workers. With AI, power will move faster and further than the politicians imagined. ■ This article was downloaded by zlibrary from https://www.economist.com/britain/2026/08/06/the-tragedy-of-the-commons-ai-edition
From parking tickets to planning, the state is under siege by AI The people-versus-state arms race Aug 6th 2026 THE POTENTIAl of AI to slash the cost of the state has left the British government giddy. Last year officials identified over 140 possible uses, from sifting diplomatic cables to culling call centres. Top civil servants were given a box of labour-saving tools, called “Humphrey”. Peter Kyle, then technology secretary, foresaw a “£45bn jackpot” in annual savings ($61bn, as much as 7% of public-sector spending). In reality, the savings may be more modest—or perhaps wiped out entirely. That is not only because Whitehall may fail to live up to Mr Kyle’s heroic rhetoric. The bigger challenge is that the public are adopting AI rapidly too. They are using AI tools to handle their daily interactions with the state, and
place growing demands on it. In effect, an AI arms race has begun between the state and citizens, and it is not clear that the state will win. Take planning. Officials have developed tools to speed up housing approvals by giving an initial verdict on whether a plan is compliant with the law. Yet local authorities report a surge in AI-generated objections to proposed developments. They are often more effective: AI-aided submissions will cite planning codes and legal precedents chapter and verse. For £45, Objector AI, a platform, will scan a wodge of planning documents, draw up the legal grounds for opposition and write a speech to read out at a public meeting. Or consider benefits. The Department for Work and Pensions uses AI to process claims and detect fraud. But claimants, too, are turning to AI chatbots to draft their demands, and maximise their prospects of success. It could get costly: Britons ask for less than they are entitled to in benefits, perhaps more than £20bn a year (0.7% of GDP), according to some estimates. The impact is felt in humdrum corners of the state. AI is behind a growth in more complex freedom-of-information requests, says the Information Commissioner’s Office, a regulator. Platforms such as Pelp will draft letters appealing against parking fines. The new Renters’ Rights Act, which enables tenants to challenge rent hikes in court, is a prime target for AI. Complaints to state regulators about lawyers, financial advisers and estate agents are climbing, according to data compiled by Chris Schmitz, of the Hertie School in Berlin, who has coined the term “agentic flooding”. Britain may be particularly exposed to such inundation because government services often accept open-text submissions, which AI is good at drafting, he suggests. But the trend is also found beyond Britain. In a forthcoming paper Mr Schmitz counts 93 examples across 11 countries. The EU Ombudsman, a complaints watchdog, the Canadian privacy regulator and Australia’s work tribunals all attribute a sharp rise in claims to AI. One Dutch municipality reported that objections to property-tax valuations increased by 400% after a commercial AI platform was launched to appeal against them. Things will only accelerate with the adoption of AI agents that can execute tasks on a user’s behalf. They may, for example, check if a property is in the
wrong tax band, and then set about fixing it, notes Tom Loosemore of Public Digital, a consultancy. AI agents are particularly well suited to navigating bureaucratic barbed wire. They are good at digesting small-print, adept at form-filling—and when it comes to a mind-numbing appeals process, they never give up the ghost. ■ This article was downloaded by zlibrary from https://www.economist.com/britain/2026/08/06/from-parking-tickets-to-planning-the- state-is-under-siege-by-ai
As the climate hurts Britain’s wheat farmers, it’s time to adapt They may need different crop varieties and more irrigation Aug 6th 2026 “I can’t remember ever finishing a harvest in July,” says Mark Weekes, a farmer who grows 700 acres of winter wheat, barley and oats near Exeter. Usually Mr Weekes cuts his crop about three weeks later. But hot, dry weather has ripened his grain faster and left it in a worse state. His fields have yielded a third less wheat and nearly two-fifths less barley than normal. “A lot has just shrivelled,” he says. British crops have been bred to grow in a moderately wet and mild climate. This year’s weather has been anything but. A very wet winter sapped nutrients from soils. A very dry summer sapped moisture. In July Britain had
just 10% of the typical rainfall for the month. The Environment Agency declared half of England in drought. Across Britain winter wheat has been cut early—its earliest harvest since 1976. Over half had been harvested by July 26th, compared with 11% a year earlier, according to the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (see chart). Wheat yields are down by nearly 16% on average, compared with the country’s ten-year mean. In the east of England, where soils are light, farmers have reported yields down by half. Shoppers are unlikely to see shortages, though. About half of the wheat grown in Britain is used for animal feed. Much of the rest is milled for bread and biscuits. Britain already imports about 15% of its milling wheat, and can import more. The real cost will be borne by farmers. Last year’s drought cost arable farmers over £800m ($1.1bn) in lost earnings, for example—nearly a quarter of the cereal sector’s annual value, according to the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit. “Our current situation is analogous to when British settlers landed in Australia in 1788 and saw their crops flounder in the heat,” says Gail Taylor of University College London. Wheat was then bred to withstand dry conditions; it is now Australia’s most valuable crop. British farmers can
adapt, too. They can plant varieties more resilient to drought. And rather than relying on rain they could use irrigation technology, as in California, typically deemed too costly—until now. ■ This article was downloaded by zlibrary from https://www.economist.com/britain/2026/08/06/as-the-climate-hurts-britains-wheat- farmers-its-time-to-adapt
The English Channel is quieter than usual. Why? Policy changes probably matter more than policing Aug 6th 2026 With the white cliffs of Dover in the background and the sun on his face, Andy Burnham asserted on August 2nd that “progress is being made” against the smugglers who transport asylum-seekers across the English Channel. More police officers are assigned to disrupting the trade, the new prime minister pointed out. And the number of migrants has fallen. It was a very different message from the one his predecessor usually delivered. Sir Keir Starmer’s statements about small boats were full of impotent fury and words such as “evil” and “misery”. The less saturnine Mr Burnham has a right to be cheerful, because the channel is indeed quieter than it was last year (see chart 1). “You have to go back to 2021 to find