Employment Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 26: 26: After Clause 15, insert the following new Clause— ““Duty to protect welfare of temporary staff recruited in the course of one transaction In the Employment Agencies Act 1973 (c. 35), after section 6 (restrictions on charging persons seeking employment, etc.) there is inserted— ““6A Duty to protect welfare of temporary staff recruited in the course of one transaction (1) Any person carrying on an employment agency or an employment business that places a number of temporary staff in the fulfilment of a single contract shall have a duty to protect the welfare of those staff. (2) In a case where subsection (1) applies, the agent must not accept any financial or other inducement from a candidate to be recruited for that contract. (3) In a case where subsection (1) applies, the agent shall provide the temporary employee with a statement of the terms of engagement setting out— (a) the terms of remuneration; (b) conditions of termination; (c) arrangements for transportation back to the place from which the employee was collected; and (d) expectations of sober and reasonable behaviour of the employee. (4) In a case where subsection (1) applies, the agent shall, without cost to the temporary employee, provide— (a) 24-hour supervision of every place in which staff are accommodated; (b) arrangements to ensure that illicit substances are excluded from the place of work and from any staff accommodation; (c) a process to obtain parental consent before the recruitment of a child under the age of 18 years; and (d) adequate and secure transport back to the place from which the employee was collected.”””” The noble Baroness said: I must warn the Committee that there is another text here, which again I shall read. Amendment No. 26 is wholly concerned with the welfare and well-being of young people of both sexes who are engaged in short-term contracts at conference and sporting venues. In contrast to Amendment No. 25, which dealt with a severely troubled but relatively mature age group, Amendment No. 26 is concerned almost entirely with young people in the age range from 16 to their early 20s, where multiple recruitments are made, usually for short-term assignments, for a block booking of young people to work in conjunction with a one-off short-term requirement. Those requirements may be, and quite often are, for waitresses and table staff for restaurants and hospitality suites at major sporting events; sometimes kitchen staff, including porters for the movement of wine and drink supplies; car park attendants; and security staff. It is quite common for an agency to be asked to recruit 20 or multiples thereof in each of those categories. The jobs that they are offering are generally popular with young people, being in attractive locations, providing useful levels of pay and fitting in reasonably with college vacation times and so on. The need for closer scrutiny and tighter regulation here arises from changing social customs and circumstances, including, most particularly, the following. First, the colleges providing the substantial source of candidates for jobs will be those covering catering and other services, but with a particular concentration on young people in the 16-to-18 age category, given current school leaving-age rules. Secondly, the increased demands for security staff, kitchen porters and so on have tilted the market away from its long-time concentration on young women to a closer match between matching groups of young men and young women, all in this same age category. It is probably not a coincidence that, at least anecdotally, the worst stories of difficulties experienced by young women at sports events occur at golf tournaments, which generally engage a far higher proportion of young men compared to the mostly female catering staff at, for example, race meetings. The increasing use of alcohol and easier access to drugs have now introduced a greater hazard to the mixing of these groups in the relative freedom of the separate and self-contained accommodation facilities generally provided when a sports event is based, as is usually the case, far from the sources of recruitment at the colleges in and around the Home Counties and southern Midlands. The amendment recognises that certain controls on this area of recruitment were introduced by the regulations which received the consent of your Lordships’ House on 17 December 2007. While those new controls were welcome and well intentioned, my noble friend suggests that they would not have been approved in that particular form had your Lordships had access on 17 December to any detailed knowledge of certain events that were about to take place in the context of certain Christmas celebrations, and which have led to criminal allegations that remain under investigation and are therefore sub judice. That fact, however, does not mean that we should allow the Bill to proceed without shoring up a number of holes that your Lordships may now feel have been left unaddressed in passing the regulations of 17 December. In that context, without in any way seeking to touch upon the case currently under investigation, my noble friend suggests that the instrument of 17 December was seriously defective in the following major respects, which this second amendment now seeks to address. First, a duty of care must be imposed on the recruitment agency for the welfare of all staff subject to a block booking. Secondly, all staff so booked must, if under the age of 18, have the consent of a parent or guardian. Thirdly, a recruitment agency must provide a written statement of the terms of the engagement setting out remuneration, conditions of termination, arrangements for return transportation from the place where the employee was collected, and reciprocal expectation of reasonable and sober behaviour by the employee. Fourthly, staff must be able to terminate an engagement and obtain transport home if circumstances turn out to be uncongenial or represent a moral hazard. All that relates—this is my own comment—to the incident where young people were seriously at risk. That is the criminal case to which my noble friend refers, and which we have all read about in the press. I shall return to his text. It must also be quite clear that no employee should be required to remain in any location to which he or she is sent in the event that they find the circumstances of the engagement uncongenial, as would be the case, say, in the event that he or she found themselves subjected to unreasonable peer-group pressure to participate in drinking, sexual or drug activity that was unwelcome. To that purpose, the amendment specifically seeks clarification about the terms on which an individual may terminate the engagement forthwith and be transported back to the point of origin, as well as an undertaking that full-time overseeing responsibility will be provided on site for the moral welfare of all young people so engaged. The regulations of 17 December and elements within the Bill identify specifically the special circumstances relating to young people in the theatrical and modelling industries. The special areas of sensitivity here are that this may substantially include the difficult area of auditioning or, as we have seen in a recent well publicised event, the block booking of large numbers of attractive young women to participate in a party function for which, while they would have a natural attraction to attend, they would also be receiving a fee. There are particular hazards here. The candidates may be so eager to attend where pop stars or other similar personalities are involved that they are actually prepared to pay for their ticket to attend, which may open the prospect that the individual member of the recruiting agency doing the selection may offer them the job in return for, say, half their fee of perhaps £100. Individuals, particularly young females, need to have it made quite clear what their role at the party will be. The old cliché of the casting couch may no longer be as dangerous as in days gone by, but there are similar hazards in the thank-you party, meant to be for financial backers of a production where the producers wish to express their thanks for the financial support, and where attendance is a condition of getting an audition. Willingness to provide sexual services at such gatherings may be seen as the modem equivalent of a casting couch and be feared as a possible precondition for exclusion at future audition lists. Amendment No. 25 was clearly concerned with middle management and junior executives who should at least be in their mature, mid-career years. In contrast, the thrust of Amendment No. 26 is aimed at very much younger people from 16 to their early 20s. It may therefore be thought that the thrust of Amendment No. 26 is concerned exclusively with young women, but my noble friend assures the Committee that there is equal concern for the moral welfare and protection of young men, due to the exceptional pressures and temptations that can be placed on them, particularly since there has been a marked increase during recent years in the number of young men being recruited for short-term assignments at sporting events to act variously as kitchen porters, car park attendants, safety stewards and field marshals, mostly at golf events. These young people are also predominantly in the age category of 16 to 18, and can be subject to very unpleasant and inappropriate pressures. In much the same way as the young women, they need the presence of an official supervisor for all young people on site at sporting events. Had that reasonable requirement been in place in recent years, it is most unlikely that the body of a kitchen porter would have surfaced during autumn rains from its burial place in car park 2 at Royal Ascot, where he had been buried by two other young porters whom he had refused to help in the significant robbery of liquor stores. Had he had an identifiable responsible person to whom he could turn, he might still be alive and the other two porters might not now be facing the best years of their life in jail. Consequently, my noble friend urges on the Committee that each category of employees that he has reflected for these amendments requires that that duty of care be firmly and clearly written into the law to ensure that employers and agencies recognise and conduct all necessary action to ensure the safety and moral welfare of all personnel concerned. I beg to move.