| Employment Relations Bill
|
|
Mr. Bruce: I am grateful for that intervention, but I suspect that if I try to understand what is in that 60-page document at the same time as trying to understand what I am trying to tell the Committee, I shall be in a muddle. However, I am worried about what is happening. I draw the Committee's attention to the four examples in the explanatory notes of matters on which regulations might be made. First, the regulations might restrict
The hon. Member for Corby talked about that particular problem. Now that holiday pay and the minimum wage have been introduced, such matters are already covered, so I cannot understand what the Government are trying to do, especially as an ordinary person employed on either a temporary or a permanent contract with an employer will get the contract of employment within three months. That will be the law. However, under the Employment Agencies Act 1973, each party to the contract must get a copy of it within 24 hours. So I do not know why the Government think that they must intervene in the contract terms.
10.45 amSecondly, the regulations might restrict
Again, that may be the problem referred to by the hon. Member for Corby, but the minimum wage will sort it out. Thirdly, the regulations might prevent
That is such a muddle that I do not know what is intended. Loopholes hardly ever exist in the current system, but if the Minister has specific requirements, he can deal with them under the existing legislation without changing it. Fourthly, the regulations might restrict
Employment agencies are most worried about that matter. An extremely effective route into employment is created when employers contact employment agencies because they need temps to fill vacancies caused by maternity leave, holidays or a series of holidays over the summer, or by someone going suddenly, leaving an employer in the lurch because a month or so is needed to recruit someone else. The temps taken on in those circumstances often become permanent employees, simply because they demonstrate that they can do an extremely good job. If the employer rang the employment agency and said, "Will you send me somebody for the permanent job?", the agency would sent a temp for the permanent job and, if the temp was successful, the agency would charge the employer a fee. The tradition in the industry is that, if an agency sends in a temp, it charges the normal rate for the temp doing the job, but if the employer decides to take on the temp, the employer pays a permanent placement fee. The industry is extremely concerned that the Government may outlaw that arrangement. It should be remembered that they are contracts freely entered into between the agency and the employer. Another problem is that, unfortunately, employers sometimes take on an individual on a permanent basis and say, "Don't tell the employment agency that we have taken you on, because we would rather not pay them the fee that they are entitled to." That happens regularly. If one was supposedly not allowed to refer on an employee, another problem could arise. Employment agencies are very good at finding out that someone has been employed permanently. However, if the agency finds out that that has happened, the employer might say, "Ah, no, you sent the temp to Ian Bruce Associates, but the temp is now employed by Ian Bruce trading as Bos Recruitment." I could have done that when I was an employer because I owned companies that traded with each other and worked on the same premises. The ability to refer on to another individual to avoid paying a permanent recruitment fee would add an unnecessary loophole and cause the problems that I have outlined. I referred earlier to the differences between the position of an employment agency, which is highly regulated to protect the employees, and that of an employer who takes on somebody on a temporary contract, who is not covered by the same regulations. Instead of taking on people under the employment agencies legislation, employment agencies might decide to take on people on a permanent contract. That is happening already with some employment businesses. Much contract business is carried out in that way, particularly with the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 1981 and given that people have continuity of employment if they have been in the job for a long time. It is becoming less attractive to employ someone through an employment agency and more attractive to say, "I am a business setting up to employ people and to supervise them" which is the critical issue. Businesses that put people in to do a job avoid being covered by the Employment Agencies Act 1973. If we telephoned Buckingham palace, the operator who answered the telephone would be not a member of the palace staff, but a contract worker. If we rang the Treasury, we would be answered not by a civil servant employed by the Treasury but by a contract worker. If we telephoned No. 10 Downing street, the switchboard operator would be not a civil servant but a contract worker. I know all about such things because, as I declared earlier, an organisation that is related to one that I advise provides people for such jobs. It does so using an employment agency type of arrangement. If someone changes contract, people do not usually charge fees from one agency to another; it is done almost by way of a gentleman's agreement. There is no problem about that. Indeed, No. 10 Downing street has recently changed agencies and there has been no transfer of recruitment fees. I shall not embarrass the agency that lost the contract by naming it. There is some uncertainty. The Federation of Recruitment and Employment Services may have said to the Government that it would be helpful to have clarification when two sets of contract workers transfer from one employment business to another, but I do not believe that a problem exists that needs to be covered by legislation. The amendments tackle the matter in two ways. First, amendment No. 120 would "delete the provisions because there is no need for them. Secondly, amendment No. 122 would add the provision:
I am attempting to reinstate the original intention of the Employment Agencies Act, which is that it should not be the business of the Government, especially a new Labour Government, to regulate the commercial arrangements between someone who goes out looking for staff and finds employment for them, and someone who employs staff directly. That relationship does not need to be regulated, especially when we consider the fees that are charged. It is a competitive market. Employment agencies face not only normal competition from others who have to make a living but competition from jobcentres, which provide temporary and permanent labour to employers free of charge. People in an employment agency, with their skills and abilities, can negotiate fees sometimes substantial ones from an employer, when a jobcentre, which is funded by the taxpayer, can do it for nothing. Before the Committee thinks that employment agencies will be crying into their beers, soup, or whatever, hon. Members should understand that the Bill may be a bonanza to employment agencies. The more regulations that the Government pile on to employers, the more employers will say, "Oh, crumbs, I don't even know what the law means now. It is easiest to ring up my local employment agency to sort out the problems. they can send in some temps." The Government may well be providing a bonanza with, for example, the additional maternity pay provision. Employment agencies will not be spending too much time complaining about the Bill. As long as their commercial ability to do their job is not interfered with, they will not worry about what the Government have to say about the protection of employees. Most employment agencies know that they can be successful only if they do a good job not just for the employers to whom they send people but for the employees. Someone can be sent to do a job at whatever fee, but if it is not done fairly and sensibly, the individual will not do a good job, and the employer will not use the agency again. There is an extremely dynamic relationship between the two. Mr. John Bercow (Buckingham): Is my hon. Friend's fear reinforced by the fact that in our Committee proceedings last week, the Minister for Small Firms, Trade and Industry was not willing to give a guarantee that the final form of the regulations accompanying the Bill would be shorter than the 72 pages of the working time directive or the 112 pages on the implementation of the national minimum wage?
|
| |
| ©Parliamentary copyright 1999 | Prepared 23 March 1999 |
