My Lords, immigration is a welcome and important part of British life. Our country’s success over the years owes much to the people who have come here from across the world and made it a better place. However, immigration can add to some of the existing pressures on communities, not least in the fields of housing and employment. The Bill, however, does not include any of the measures which we have been calling for and which would address some of these pressures.
Amendment 67 aims to end the practice among some recruitment agencies of excluding local workers. Many recruitment agencies are a great asset to the communities they work in, helping employers to find employees and potential employees to find work. However, there has been an issue whereby some employment agencies have effectively been taking on only foreign workers and excluding British people from their books. Over the past two decades, there has been significant growth in agency employment—a 500% increase between the mid-1980s and 2007. Migrants are now overrepresented within agency work, particularly at the lower end, with migrants from the EU’s A8 accession countries of 2004 constituting the largest single group of agency workers.
In certain sectors, such as the meat and poultry processing industry, there are examples of British workers facing difficulty registering for work, with some agencies supplying only migrant workers, generally eastern European nationals. While it is not illegal for agencies
to choose to recruit from particular countries, any refusal to register an applicant because of their nationality is unlawful under the Race Relations Act and a breach of the Gangmasters (Licensing) Act licensing standards. The Equality and Human Rights Commission conducted a survey in 2010, and found that a third of agencies confirmed that they had acted unlawfully in sometimes supplying workers by judging which nationality the processing firm would prefer, or by responding to direct requests, often basing their actions on stereotypes about the perceived dependability of particular nationalities.
The idea that in core sectors of our economy some recruitment agencies should exclude local people, and make a virtue of being able to offer cheaper, more flexible, and allegedly more compliant staff than those available locally, is surely wrong. It is not fair on UK workers who as a result do not have the opportunity to compete for jobs, and it is not going to help us rebuild our economy. The only way action can be taken is for an individual to bring a discrimination case through an employment tribunal, or for the Equality and Human Rights Commission to bring about a compliance order, since recruitment agencies are not legally prevented from acting in this way. We need to strengthen the law so that agencies are not able to operate exclusionary practices—formally or informally—and then enforce it properly, with prosecutions of agencies that flout the law.
Amendment 69 includes provision for a realistic minimum fine for employing illegal immigrants. Illegal migration can lead to exploitation of migrant labour, unacceptable working conditions and undercutting of legal employment. That is not good for either the migrant or the domestic economy. It is against the law to employ illegal immigrants. There is a maximum fine for doing so, but it appears that there is no minimum fine set by legislation. The number of businesses fined for employing illegal immigrants has halved since 2010. UK dairy farms that have recently been found guilty of using illegal labour hired through gangmasters, where workers were being housed in poor accommodation previously used by animals and paid £400 to £500 less than the minimum wage each month, received a civil penalty amounting to £300 per worker. Our amendment would enable the Secretary of State to give an employer who is in breach of the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006 a notice requiring the employer to pay a penalty of a specified amount which does not exceed the prescribed maximum and is not below the prescribed minimum.
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Amendment 70 would bring other categories of work, which the Secretary of State would specify, under the scope of the Gangmasters (Licensing) Act 2004. Research from charities, academics and trade unions suggests that hundreds of thousands of migrant workers are routinely underpaid and overworked in jobs across the UK on farms, in care homes, in hotels and the hospitality sector, on construction sites and in the provision of cleaning services. Often employed by labour providers or gangmasters, many of these workers will have little idea of UK employment rights such as the national minimum wage, let alone the leverage to
be able to claim them. I have already mentioned the example of the dairy farms that were found guilty of using illegal labourers hired through gangmasters and were fined just £300—less than they saved by employing one illegal migrant for a month. Despite the fact that the agency sector in the UK has quadrupled since 1994, a high percentage of employers now use subcontractors. There is no effective government regulation of the majority of UK labour providers. In government, we established the Gangmasters Licensing Authority, which does important work to improve health and safety standards and prevent the exploitation of workers in the agricultural, horticultural and shellfish-gathering industries. We have tabled this amendment as the Government should launch an immediate consultation on the further areas and categories of work and employment that should come under the scope of the Gangmasters (Licensing) Act 2004.
Finally, we have tabled a general amendment that would require the Government to produce an assessment in the 12 months following Royal Assent on the impact of European immigration to the United Kingdom, with specific reference to non-compliance with and enforcement of four Acts of Parliament: the National Minimum Wage Act 1998; the Gangmasters (Licensing) Act 2004; the Equality Act 2010; and the Housing Act 2004.
The National Minimum Wage Act set a minimum wage for young people and full-time employees and was a welcome and necessary addition to employment legislation. However, since the general election, as I understand it only two people have been taken to court for paying below the legal limit per hour and just three have been referred to prosecutors. Research by the Low Pay Commission suggests that in certain sectors of the economy, particularly those which employ significant numbers of immigrant workers such as food processing, hospitality and cleaning, the minimum wage is often not enforced. Employers are using a variety of means to side-step the rates. These include: restaurants assuming that staff will receive a certain sum in tips and deducting that cash from their pay packets; employees being wrongly classified as volunteers and thus not entitled to a wage; companies charging staff for uniforms or benefits in kind such as accommodation or transport; and the payment of cash in hand so that hours and wages go unrecorded. The Government’s response is, frankly, simply not adequate. There is inadequate enforcement of the legislation and the Government need to do more to enforce labour market laws so that poor employers cannot get a competitive advantage over law-abiding and responsible employers by taking on immigrants at extremely low wages.
I have already referred to gangmasters. The Gangmasters (Licensing) Act 2004 introduced regulation and licensing of those who seek to recruit workers to supply to particular industries. There is anecdotal—and, indeed, some stronger—evidence from reputable sources that gangmasters are recruiting predominantly from eastern European citizens. They come to this country with the prospect of employment and find themselves
subject to people who operate under the auspices of the Gangmasters Licensing Authority but also, potentially, illegally.
The Equality Act 2010 brought together a range of legislation passed under the previous Government that outlawed discrimination on a number of fronts, including recruitment on the grounds of race or nationality.
The Housing Act 2004 strengthened measures on houses in multiple occupation and the registration of landlords, among other associated matters. Again, though, there is evidence that regulations made under the Housing Act 2004, particularly those covering houses in multiple occupation, are not being adhered to by a number of individuals who deal with migrant labour from the wider European community. We have also been faced with cases of what are known as “beds in sheds”. Many immigrants coming to the United Kingdom bring enormous benefit to community life: they are neighbours, friends and upstanding members of the community. However, many are exploited by unscrupulous landlords. Some choose poor accommodation because it is all that they can afford. We need to stop those landlords who exploit migrant workers with overcrowded, overpriced accommodation. This is also bad for local communities and leads to undercutting of local workers, too. We need a proper register for private sector landlords.
It is important that we seek to address the abuses of migrants in the fields of employment and housing by those who seek to exploit such people for their own personal ends and financial benefit. The effect of that exploitation is also to create uncertainty and disharmony within communities among the existing resident population, who feel that their often already difficult position is being further undermined and made less secure as a result. I simply conclude by saying that I hope that the Government will respond positively to the measures which I have outlined.