Temporary and Agency Workers (Equal Treatment) Bill

It is certainly true that all workers are entitled to the minimum wage. To reinforce that right, the Government have increased expenditure on minimum wage enforcement by some £3 million a year. If the hon. Gentleman is so minded, he can visit the minimum wage bus that is touring the country, stopping at 30 towns and cities to advertise that right and the helpline that people can contact if they feel that they are not being paid the minimum wage. It is critical that we do not underestimate the importance of work and access to work to individuals, families and the country as a whole. It gives not just a financial reward but self-belief, a sense of purpose and a route out of poverty. It is therefore important to keep the barriers to work low and to help people to move from a world of inactivity to a world of activity, not only for the economy's good but for the good of individuals. Of course, the rationale for the Bill is not to deny the advantages of agency work, some of which my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston set out, but to offer protection for agency workers subject to mistreatment. The abuses mentioned in the debate often represent breaches of existing law. We have heard in recent days about people being asked to work machinery without safety guards and so on, which is a breach of the existing law and would not be covered by either the Bill or the draft European directive, which serves as the backdrop to the debate and focuses on pay. That was why we announced, through our 2006 policy statement, ““Success at Work””, that we would focus on vulnerable workers of all types and make a significant effort to ensure that the law as it stands is better enforced. We have made significant efforts to enforce the law on vulnerable workers, and I shall set some of those out. We have completely revised and updated regulations governing the British recruitment industry—the so-called conduct regulations, which came into force in April 2004. They have been amended to ensure new protections for agency workers, so that from April they will have a specific right to withdraw from services provided alongside the job, such as housing or transport, without any detriment to themselves. The regulations are enforced by an agency inspectorate in my Department, which is soon to be increased in numbers. We have also ensured that all workers, including agency workers, are covered by anti-discrimination laws and have core employment protections including the minimum wage and the working time regulations, on the back of which we have recently increased access to paid annual leave. Perhaps it is worth reminding colleagues that the regulations governing rights to paid leave were top of the Opposition policy commission's hit list to abolish, should they ever find themselves in a position to do that. More broadly, we have taken forward the issue through the vulnerable workers enforcement forum, which I chair and which includes representatives from business, including agency employers, trade unions, citizens advice bureaux and enforcement agencies across Government. That body has been considering issues such as how to make it easier for people to report abuses and how to ensure better co-operation between the enforcement agencies. I stress those efforts because, whatever the merits or demerits of the Bill or the draft European directive, they would not tackle breaches of the current law. The answer to that is better enforcement, which we are determined to achieve. The minimum wage has been mentioned once or twice. Labour Members supported it because we wanted to put a floor under the labour market, beneath which no worker should fall.