Draft Employment Rights Act 2025 (Investigatory Powers) (Consequential Amendments) Regulations 2026
(Limited Text - Ministerial Extracts only)
Read Full debateThe Committee divided: - Ayes: 12 / Noes: 4 - Question accordingly agreed to.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Kate Dearden)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Employment Rights Act 2025 (Investigatory Powers) (Consequential Amendments) Regulations 2026.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stuart. The draft regulations are narrow, necessary and strictly consequential. When Parliament passed the Employment Rights Act 2025, it took the clear policy decision to bring the criminal enforcement functions of the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority into the new Fair Work Agency. Those functions include the ability for the GLAA, as provided for in schedule 4 of the Investigatory Powers Act 2016, to obtain authorisations to acquire communications data in the most serious cases of labour exploitation.
The sole purpose of this instrument is to ensure that this capability continues seamlessly when the Fair Work Agency becomes operational in April. It updates the statutory reference that currently names the GLAA, so that the same powers are available to the new agency when carrying out serious exploitation investigations that were previously undertaken by the GLAA.
Let me be clear about what the draft regulations do not do: they do not create new investigatory powers; they do not widen the scope of existing powers under the 2016 Act; and they do not lower statutory thresholds, alter authorisation routes or touch surveillance, entry or financial investigation powers. All those sit in primary legislation and remain entirely intact. This statutory instrument simply avoids an unintended enforcement gap following the transition.
Members of the Committee may also have noticed that an earlier version of this instrument was withdrawn. This was done to correct a technical drafting point where the original text duplicated a removal of the GLAA from schedule 4 that already occurs automatically under the primary Act. The corrected instrument before the Committee today makes no change to substance or policy.
Turning briefly to safeguards, communications data is not the content of calls, texts or emails—it is the who, when and where, not the what. In practice, this means information such as subscriber details, phone numbers, call durations, IP addresses, email logs and location data from mobile devices, but never the content itself. It can only be acquired by the Fair Work Agency for serious criminal investigations—that is, for offences that carry at least a 12-month custodial sentence, and only when necessary and proportionate.
In practice, the GLAA has used these powers sparingly, and only in some of the most complex and organised exploitation cases, often where victims are too frightened or unable to come forward. Those safeguards carry over in full to the Fair Work Agency. Every application will continue to go through single point of contact gatekeeping, and routine cases will continue to require authorisation by the Investigatory Powers Commissioner’s Office, which will continue to inspect and oversee use of these powers, exactly as now.
It is worth underlining that the value of these powers lies not in their frequency of use but in their precision. Communications data is a targeted tool that helps investigators build a clearer picture of organised exploitation, where victims may be isolated, threatened or unable to speak freely. It allows enforcement bodies to corroborate other intelligence and identify links between offenders and locations. Used properly, and under strict oversight, it is a vital element of the wider framework that Parliament has already put in place to confront the most serious forms of labour abuse.
To illustrate the value of these powers in practice, I can point to a recent case in which communications data played a vital role. Forty one vulnerable workers were brought to the UK with promises of decent work and accommodation, only to be exploited by an organised group. Their wages were taken, false identities were created and they were housed in unsafe and overcrowded conditions. Managers within the employing business even assisted the exploitation by diverting wages and acting as unlicensed gangmasters. Access to communications data enabled investigators to uncover the links between the organisers and those inside the firm, revealing patterns of wage diversion, false accounts, excessive deductions and, crucially, further victims. Faced with that clear evidence, the offenders pleaded guilty and received custodial sentences.
On transparency, the Investigatory Powers Commissioner will continue to report annually on the use of the powers, providing Parliament with a clear overview of how they are exercised. Additionally, the Fair Work Agency will report on its use of the powers in its annual report. As we bring three enforcement bodies together, the aim is a clearer system for workers and a simpler one for responsible employers.
Those who exploit workers, particularly through coercive, abusive or criminal practices, must not be given the opportunity to exploit gaps during transition. Ensuring the continuity of capability from day one of the Fair Work Agency is essential to that. The draft regulations provide that continuity without changing the law on when or how investigatory powers may be used, without broadening the Investigatory Powers Act and without altering any of the strong safeguards that Parliament has put in place.
This is a precise and technical instrument that ensures that Parliament’s decisions in the Employment Rights Act can operate exactly as intended when the agency becomes fully operational. I commend the draft regulations to the Committee.
Kate Dearden
I thank the shadow Minister for her contributions and the Liberal Democrat spokesperson for her support for this statutory instrument. It might be helpful for me to run through the purpose of the particular SI, which I hope I made clear in my introductory remarks. I will touch on a few things that the shadow Minister has raised.
To repeat: we are replacing one specified body with a successor. The Fair Work Agency’s remit, as debated across Parliament, is established in the Employment Rights Act, which brings together the existing functions of the GLAA, the Employment Agency Standards Inspectorate and His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs’s national minimum wage enforcement.
On what the shadow Minister alluded to, the Act does include the delegated power to add further labour market enforcement functions in future, subject to new regulations and parliamentary scrutiny. However, this SI does not use that power and does not add any new enforcement functions; it is purely consequential. No new powers have been created previously under the GLAA, as I alluded to in my opening remarks. The Fair Work Agency will only be able to request the use of these powers to investigate offences under the GLAA’s previous remit, and for other offences added to the Fair Work Agency’s remit by the Employment Rights Act—which we debated.
For the sake of detail, the only offences in the FWA’s remit that meet the serious crime threshold in the Investigatory Powers Act that I talked about in my opening remarks are as follows: offences under the Gangmasters (Licensing) Act 2004 and the Modern Slavery Act 2015 that were part of the GLAA’s remit, and offences under section 1 of the Fraud Act 2006 that was added to the Fair Work Agency’s remit by the Employment Rights Act, and was debated in the House. The Serious Fraud Office can already request the use of those powers to investigate those offences. The offence of failing to comply with a labour market enforcement order under section 139 of the Employment Rights Act supersedes an offence under the Immigration Act 2016, which is in the GLAA’s remit. The GLAA has never sought the use of these powers to investigate the offence in the Immigration Act. Offences under sections 140 and 142 of the Employment Rights Act are for Scotland only and were considered by the House in Committee.
I hope that it is clear what we are debating today. The offences to which the power relates do not change, only the remit does. We have transferred over the powers of existing enforcement bodies, but added extra safeguards—at present, a warrant is not needed to enter a dwelling, for example. It is clear what this SI will do. Continuing as normal would weaken enforcement, which would not be good for businesses or those who are on the most vulnerable side of the labour market and who need the Government on their side to make sure that their rights are enforced and that they are supported at work, and to stop modern slavery.
That is why this SI is so important. It is disappointing that the Opposition will be voting against it—I thought that we would be on the same page—because the question today is whether serious labour exploitation investigations should continue uninterrupted, and when the new agency goes live. It is quite simple and technical, as I have alluded to. I thank the Liberal Democrats for their support and urge all colleagues to support this necessary legislation so that we can crack on with enforcement and support the agency in doing so.
Question put.