Clause 1
Temporary and Agency Workers (Equal Treatment) Bill
10:15 am
Pat McFadden (Minister of State (Employment Relations and Postal Affairs), Department for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform; Wolverhampton South East, Labour)
The debate has highlighted the importance of definitions. As far as I can see, the debate about fair treatment for agency workers has been focused on people in temporary placements who work alongside permanently hired staff. There is perceived injustice and unfairness. There are some confusing terms because while we talk about agency workers and employment agencies, we also talk about employment businesses. The type of business that conducts a three-way relationship among the supplying organisation, the hiring end user and the worker in between is often an employment business, whereas employment agencies can include organisations, usually called head-hunters, that are engaged in the recruitment business, but in a different way. This is about having a client group of businesses and a client group of individuals, and matching up the two for the purposes of permanent employment.
As I understand my hon. Friend’s Bill, its aim is to legislate for equal treatment for those hired on a temporary basis, which can extend for longer than would normally be considered a temporary placement, and permatemps, as described by the hon. Member for Solihull. We are all concerned about people who have been engaged in placements lasting for years and years. On any normal understanding of the term, they would be regarded as permanent, but they do not have the status, protection and rights of permanent workers. That is somewhat different from someone who might be filling in on a sort of seasonal basis or to cover for short-term leave, or perhaps just working for events where there is a build up over a significant period although the event itself might last only a few days.
The first question that we must ask is what are we trying to legislate for. My understanding, both of the European directive and my hon. Friend’s Bill, is that there is an attempt to legislate for temporary placements and people who are covered by that. We will go on to have many discussions about qualifying periods during our consideration of the Bill, but we must start by saying that we are talking about people who are placed on a temporary basis.