Temporary and Agency Workers (Equal Treatment) Bill

The frustration that I felt in waiting so long to be called has been more than compensated for by the quality of the contribution by my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies). It is vitally significant that he has put on the record the views of employers. He curtailed his remarks, because he was going to tell us a lot more about the attitude of temporary workers and agency workers. Perhaps it will interest Labour Members if I pick up my hon. Friend's point that 66 per cent. of agency workers are satisfied with their pay—I am not sure whether 66 per cent. of MPs are satisfied with their pay—which indicates the high level of satisfaction among agency workers. I declare an interest, because I employ a gap-year student on a temporary employment contract. I pay that student well in excess of the minimum wage and comply with all national regulations. It would ridiculous to say that MPs or others cannot take on gap-year students as temporary employees. My constituents and I have significantly benefited from the work of that particular employee and others whom I have previously employed in similar positions. Although I congratulate the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Andrew Miller) on having chosen this subject following his success in the ballot, I am concerned that he couples his position as the promoter of the Bill with being the Chairman of the Regulatory Reform Committee, which I suspect entails a conflict of interest. This Bill is highly regulatory, and the fact that the Government are not enthusiastic shows that it is highly regulatory, because they normally go along with regulation. Many hon. Members support the Bill, and, perhaps in defiance of the Government Whip, they have signed early-day motion 692, in the terms of which lies the fallacy of their position. Early-day motion 692 states that"““there are 1.4 million agency workers in the UK””" and points out"““that many new jobs are considered temporary and are often filled by agency staff; recognises that such staff are often used to cope with fluctuations in demand and form a legitimate part of the labour market””," which is fine. However, it goes on to say"““that they are subjected to inferior pay and conditions and blatant exploitation””." According to early-day motion 692, the 1.4 million agency workers are all subject to inferior pay and conditions and blatant exploitation. We know from the evidence provided by organisations on all sides of the argument that the proportion of agency workers and temporary workers who are subject to exploitation is smaller than the proportion of permanent employees who experience that condition. Early-day motion 692 immensely exaggerates the problem. The motion"““further recognises that agency workers are sometimes employed to undercut permanent workforces””." At least, that is more moderate language, because of the use of the word ““sometimes””, although I do not know whether that means 50, 100 or 1 million times given that there are 1.4 million agency workers, but I do not quarrel with the use of that word. However, the early-day motion overstates the case when it refers to ““divisive conditions and resentment””. The motion then"““calls on the Government to take appropriate action to establish the principle of equal pay and conditions for agency workers compared with their permanent counterparts.””" That is why this is such a significant debate, because we are not just looking at the issue in terms of whether the Government should support the Bill, but we are considering it in the context of what is happening in Europe. Unfortunately, when the Government removed the UK's opt-out from the social chapter, they opened our country up to regulation by the European Union on the basis of majority voting. We know that we have often found that our particular circumstances governing employment in this country are at odds with what happens on the continent. We have found that the imposition of the 48-hour working time directive has had perverse consequences in our labour market, probably including being partly responsible for an increase, following a period of decline, in the number of agency and temporary workers employed in the UK economy in the last two years.