Clause 1
Temporary and Agency Workers (Equal Treatment) Bill
10:00 am
Andrew Miller (Ellesmere Port and Neston, Labour)
This is an important amendment, and I hope to explain in a few moments why it should be opposed. It would leave many unprotected, because only employment businesses would be covered. The previous Bill on the same subject that the House looked at last year was confined to employment businesses, but it is not entirely clear from the record why that was the case. These businesses employ workers on a temporary basis for an end-user, so it follows that an employment business is responsible for paying their employees. Colleagues will remember that on Second Reading I dealt with an example of exactly that circumstance from Calor Gas, where two people had been employed as temps for 12 and eight years respectively.
Confusingly, the employee of an employment business is often referred to as an agency worker. An employment agency will introduce a work seeker to a hirer or end-user. The hirer may take the work seeker on with a permanent contract as an employee at the outset and pay a fee for that introduction. There is a reputable agency in my constituency that prides itself in doing just that: seeking to place people into temporary situations with a view to planning their progression into permanent employment with that employer. That is a welcome approach by that agency, and fees will be paid for that introduction.