Temporary and Agency Workers (Equal Treatment) Bill

I preface my brief comments with two points. First, I apologise to the House because I cannot stay to the end of the debate. I have to leave early for a hospital appointment that I have already cancelled once because of parliamentary business. Secondly, I want to be brief because the second item of business—the Leasehold Reform Bill, which is to be presented by my hon. Friend the Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes)—will be hugely important in strengthening the rights of leaseholders, and the Government have indicated that they might not oppose it. I have no argument with the intention of the Temporary and Agency Workers (Equal Treatment) Bill to protect vulnerable agency workers from being exploited by unscrupulous agencies. However, the Bill scoops all agency and temporary workers into the same net. Most agencies are reputable and care for their workers; otherwise, people would not continue to work for them. The net also scoops up professional contractors who use agencies and who are paid a premium to lend their expertise for a specific time. They could suffer a pay loss if the Bill were implemented. Indeed, my hon. Friend the Member for Teignbridge (Richard Younger-Ross) has expressed his fears about that. In his previous life, he worked as an architectural technician and he benefited from agency work and from receiving premium payments. Companies use agencies because they need flexibility to cope with fluctuations in demand. Six per cent. of the work force are temporary or agency workers, and the arrangements can suit them, too. The TUC reports that 50 per cent. of temporary and agency workers choose this form of working because it gives them flexibility. If we were to give agency workers the same rights as employees, we would kill this market stone dead because it would remove the reason that these workers exist. Also, if there were an economic downturn, as many people fear, a lack of flexibility to cope with changing business needs could spell the end of many more jobs than those of the temporary and agency workers alone. There are injustices in this market, and they must be tackled. Government statistics prove that, on average, temporary workers earn 23 per cent. less than the average for the whole work force, though that is due at least in part to the concentration of temporary workers at the unskilled end of the labour market. I feel particularly that it is not right that agency and temporary workers should be kept on contracts for long periods when they are really employees in all but name. The CBI, the Federation of Small Businesses, the Institute of Directors and the British Chambers of Commerce seem willing to help tackle the problem by considering the possibility of a period after which temporary or agency workers would be entitled to full equal rights, as outlined in the Bill. They seem to favour a period of 12 months, as it would tie in with other aspects of employment legislation. As we have heard, the CBI says that its members would sit on an agency workers commission. The commission appears to be a good way forward. In relation to unscrupulous agencies that flout existing law, the problem is not so much a need for new legislation but for enforcement of the legislation that we already have. How many new laws will it take before the Government realise that they will not stop bad behaviour just by making it illegal, but must increase the certainty of getting caught? I read recently that the average employer can expect an enforcement visit from a Government minimum wage inspector once every 287 years. The Minister's earlier assertion that the Government are enforcing the minimum wage looks hollow.