My Lords, as the Minister will know, I am a refugee from the employment relations world and the language of immigration is not familiar to me. I know that the Minister himself has a lot of personal experience of employment relations so I hope he will understand that, in supporting my noble friend’s amendment, I have real concerns about why these issues have come up under an Immigration Bill at all. Obviously, I must not be self-indulgent and make a Second Reading speech at this stage, but I echo what has been said that, if this is associated with immigration matters then reporting by vulnerable workers will be even less likely, and that is a matter of some concern.
My other concern is that vulnerable workers can also be British-born. We have heard a lot about how some adults with special needs have been housed in tin shacks and exploited horribly. When I produced a report for the previous Labour Government on construction fatalities, I identified that there were also vulnerable groups of workers who were British-born: the very young, who would not necessarily challenge the authority of their employer, and—how shall I put it?—the quite mature, who were perhaps reaching the end of their working life in construction and thought that they knew rather more about it than they actually did, or perhaps were not familiar with a piece of machinery. So I would regret it if this were seen entirely as an issue of immigrant and migrant labour. Because of where it has appeared in the legislation, there is a danger that that could happen.
I take some comfort from the fact that the consultation exercise was shared between the Home Office and BIS. I look for an assurance from the Minister that BIS will have a very full role to play so that the employment relations aspect of all this—the labour market issues as I know them—rather than immigration issues, will be fully taken into consideration.
7pm
Perhaps I may underline that, when I looked at this issue, I recommended that the Gangmasters Licensing Authority should cover construction. That was seven years ago, so things have changed without all the changes the Government are recommending. In a way, I am rather glad that the powers are being extended, but it is a question of being careful what you wish for. I have a real worry that this tidy little hierarchy, which looks as if it is going to be based in the Home Office, is going to be a dissipated power and there are going to be a lot of misunderstandings about the role of the new authority.
In the year that I studied for the report, there was a lot of discussion because about 12 migrant workers had been killed in the construction industry. Some would say they were the most vulnerable because they were used to tolerating lower standards of health and safety or they were exploited or there was a language barrier that prevented effective communication. I have to say there was no real data to show this. Equally, I saw that many migrants were skilled and experienced and worked in regular groups. They were attracted to
the industry, which liked their work ethic, and they were paid the agreed industry rates. Some questioned the competence of migrant skilled workers and said their qualifications were not comparable, but there was no evidence to prove that.
I agree with what my noble friend Lord Rosser has said. Can the Minister assure us that the real labour relations issues will not be neglected here and that the good work of the Gangmasters Licensing Authority will not be dissipated in any way? We should remember that this is not just an immigration issue; it concerns vulnerable workers of all kinds.