Private Equity (Transfer of Undertakings and Protection of Employment) Bill

I agree with the hon. Gentleman that we must seek out those employers—I hope that they are a small group, but we have to accept that they exist—who are nasty, who want to pay their workers as little as possible and who give them no rights whatsoever. They are not helping the British economy. They may be trying to help themselves, but they will get that wrong, too. I suspect that the productivity of those who work in enlightened firms is much higher than that in firms where employees are abused. I hope that when the Minister replies, he will say whether he believes the Bill is necessary at all. We have heard what the CBI said, and what my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Djanogly) said about existing protections. I joked with my hon. Friends about the £3 million bus that we discussed last week, which is being used to tell workers about their right to the minimum wage. Perhaps it should be used to tell them about other rights, if those rights have been abused as some hon. Members believe. Perhaps the scheme can be extended to give more information to workers. I, too, believe in fair play for workers, but we must look at the unintended consequences that the Bill would have. The UK is one of 27 countries in the European Union. We call them our neighbours, laughingly, but they are competitors just as much as they are our neighbours. We must make sure that we do not disadvantage any firms in the UK with legislation that will end both the flexibility that the Government have tried to achieve for them and our competitive advantage. We must recognise the growth of firms in Asian countries. This week, I was fortunate enough to the meet the Prime Minister of Vietnam, which has recently enjoyed 8 per cent. growth. I learned that Vietnam has managed to take more people out of poverty than any other country, and it is important that we acknowledge that. We have to compete with such countries, but not on conditions. Hon. Members should not get me wrong: it would be awful to think that we could drag the rights of our workers back to the standard that exists for workers in other parts of the world. That is something that we simply do not want to do.