Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Bill

I am grateful to noble Lords for this important debate. My noble friend Lady Turner has sat through all our deliberations today and now, towards the end, she has raised an underlying principle. At the forefront of her mind is, as ever, her concern that we should protect and support our workers appropriately. I pay enormous tribute to her work in this area over many years. I was fortunate enough to be a member of the trade union that my noble friend was engaged with, so I can speak of it with first-hand experience as well. I hope that noble Lords will understand my concern not to allow employers mitigation because they have treated illegal workers well. An illegal worker is an illegal worker; in my mind it is a straight line. It would be inappropriate for employers to argue that because they were nice to their workers they have behaved better. It may be in our minds to consider that they have tried to treat them effectively but I do not want that to get mixed up with other factors. The reason is that the appropriate and proper treatment of people who come to our country and provide us with their skills and expertise, enrich our daily lives and improve our economic growth and sustainability should in all circumstances be valued and recognised. I know that my noble friend is using this part of the Bill as a device to raise an important issue, but I hope she will understand that I do not agree with the amendments because I do not want to distort the fact that an illegal worker is an illegal worker or to take away from the critical need to support legal workers in this country appropriately. The Government are looking at how best the public authorities responsible for enforcing workplace regulations can work together—IND, the Department for Work and Pensions, HMRC, DTI, the Health and Safety Executive and so on—to make improvements. For example, our pilot scheme in the West Midlands tests our departments’ ability to share intelligence on the suspected exploitation of illegal workers within the existing legal powers and establish how we work better together to support workers in all situations. That could be an important part of the work of the new Equality and Human Rights Commission that we are setting up. I acknowledge the role of the noble Lord, Lord Lester, in ensuring that we gave it flexibility of approach. The commission could be valuable in giving us information and looking into those issues. I cannot agree to my noble friend’s amendment for the reasons I have given, but I accept absolutely that we must do as much as possible to support the position of legal workers in this country and to ensure that they get appropriate terms and conditions. The European Convention on the Legal Status of Migrant Workers was established in 1977. No one has ratified it and I do not think that there is any prospect that the Government will do so. The noble Lord, Lord Lester, suggested that I might spend my weekend looking at the convention. I return from a meeting of justices Ministers in Vienna on Saturday evening, so I think that the noble Lord will find that he is having lunch in my house on Sunday. If he wishes me to cook, I suggest that he withdraws the proposal that I look at the convention.