Clause 1
Temporary and Agency Workers (Equal Treatment) Bill
9:30 am
Andrew Miller (Ellesmere Port and Neston, Labour)
Let me deal briefly with some of the points that have come up in the debate. My hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, West was spot on in his intervention during the previous sitting, and colleagues who believe that such matters are a problem for head-hunters are wrong. Under existing legislation and the Bill, an agency worker is a person supplied by an employment business or an employment agency to work for another person—the end-user—under a contract or other arrangement made between them.
As my hon. Friend said, head-hunters enter into relationships with the end-user and, subsequent to that, the person appointed to the task in hand is under contract to, and has an employment relationship with, the end-user. That does not alter the fact that there could technically be—and no doubt are—cases when head-hunters act in more than one way, but the position is clear. We must consider definitions carefully as we proceed through the Bill.
Some provisions take us back to 1973 and it is important that we examine definitional issues, such as the case of James v. Greenwich London borough council. A woman had worked continuously for the council through employment agencies for several years. Written agreements between her and the agencies expressly provided that she would carry out her work as a self-employed temporary worker, and that her work would not give rise to a contract between her and the end-user of her services. In February 2008, the Court of Appeal found that, as a general rule, a temporary agency worker supplied by an employment agency to an end-user client would not be the employee of the client nor the agency. We must be mindful of such anomalies. The hon. Member for Solihull has highlighted an important issue but, because of the various circumstances in which employees can find themselves, I urge her to withdraw the amendment.