Temporary and Agency Workers (Equal Treatment) Bill [Money]

Perhaps some people have closed their ears in recent months, but my understanding was that the Government oppose the Bill and the European directive. Does the hon. Gentleman now claim that the Government give the measure their full support? If that is the case, it would have been nice of the Minister to give some indication in his earlier remarks. Will the Minister please justify allowing the Bill to proceed any further, while the Government oppose a directive that legislates on the same issues, and before his proposed UK commission has had the chance to negotiate solutions to the problems of temporary and agency workers? Could it be because the Government are running scared of the unions, who ordered more than 140 Labour MPs to turn up and ram the Bill through on Second Reading, at the expense, it seems, of the British taxpayer? Does the Minister not realise the damage that the Bill could inflict on British business? I have a number of concerns about the Bill regarding expenditure. The provision in the Bill that attempts to allow for different treatment of direct workers and agency workers lacks a lot of clarity. There is a no definition of ““objective grounds””, for instance. It is also unclear when an employer can lawfully pay an agency worker less than a comparable direct worker. I cannot see how, for instance, the agency and the employer are supposed to know without a tribunal ruling when it would be justified on objective grounds to pay an agency worker less than a permanent employee. That provision is being cited by many experts as meaning more time entangled in legal disputes and more money spent on unnecessary legal fees. Importantly for the purposes of the resolution, however, the tens of thousands of projected claims will clog up our tribunals and courts. Will the Minister please give an assessment of the cost to the taxpayer of that? The Bill aims to give a definition of the comparable direct worker. Again, the provisions are vague and confusing. Will the Minister give some idea of both the cost implications for the state and the further pressures on our already overburdened employment tribunal system? I shall return to those issues in further depth tomorrow. However, I should point out now that clause 4 provides for the creation of a new regulatory regime for enforcing the Bill's equal treatment provisions. Again, that would be extremely costly, given the huge increases in the number of tribunals that would result if this vague and unclear Bill were to be enacted. My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope) will be pleased to know that we would very much have preferred to vote against the resolution for its content and implications. I agree with him that it is somewhat bizarre that a Government who are supposed to be opposing the Bill are supporting the resolution this evening. However, we also respect the convention that the Government should allow a money resolution to accompany the Second Reading success of a private Member's Bill, notwithstanding the fact that—or perhaps, should I say, not least because—the Bill was forced through by a Back-Bench Labour rebellion.