Gangmasters Licensing Authority

David Morris Excerpts

Wednesday 20th June 2012 Westminster Hall

[Stephen Barclay (North East Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Dobbin, for the opportunity to speak in this debate.

I want us to pause, and for Members, in their busy lives, to picture waking up in a crowded room—with several other people sleeping nearby and without any space to sit down for breakfast—leaving before dawn in an old, rickety minibus to work a 12-hour day in the cold, windswept fields and fens and, at the end of a hard week, finding that most of their wages have been taken from them in spurious charges. Moreover, if they complain, they risk being thrown out without a job, without a home, and being on the streets with no money, in a foreign land and not speaking the language, a long way from home.

That is not a picture of some foreign country; those difficult-to-imagine working conditions are here in Britain today. Just last month, a report by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation found that many migrant workers continue to live in a climate of fear, with the reality of poverty and subject to inhuman conditions. Such issues are becoming more important. A report due out shortly by Durham university academics suggests that between 2,000 and 5,000 people experience the worst manifestations of illegal gangmasters in the UK. It is a pressing issue for people who are legally in this country—they are here to work and not for benefits—and that alone should justify there being action.

There is also a wider impact on those living next door to the people I am talking about, in houses in multiple occupation, because antisocial behaviour has a social impact. In my surgery only last Saturday, a constituent came in to complain about someone urinating in the street outside their house. That behaviour arises from the dehumanising and squalid conditions in which those people have to live, and it often manifests itself in the form of large groups of young men, without much money, drinking from shared cans in the street, which can intimidate the local population. Another impact is that many constituents, in all constituencies I think, have expressed concern about the pace and scale of immigration. Legally, Ministers can do little in relation to eastern European migration, which is movement within the European Union. However, I want to highlight the opportunity that the Government now have, through taking action with the Gangmasters Licensing Authority, to show that they are tackling some of the worst abuses associated with that migration.

The purpose of this debate is not to criticise the many legal gangmasters, who are an important part of the agricultural labour force. We must distinguish between them and the many illegal gangs associated with the abuses and criminality that blight some of the most vulnerable workers in my constituency and those of many other Members. Having established why the issue matters and why we are having this debate, I want to focus the Minister’s attention on five areas in which action is now required: resource allocation, the introduction of civil penalties, sentencing guidelines, repayment orders and more effective multi-agency working.

I am not saying that the Gangmasters Licensing Authority has had a negative impact. Since it was set up, following the tragic Morecambe bay cockle pickers disaster, it has made an improvement. I welcome the Minister’s decision to retain it, but I signal to him that its status at the moment is somewhat in limbo: it has not been adequately resourced to be effective, but nor has it been scrapped and merged with another body.

[David Morris (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Con)]

My hon. Friend and I go back a long way—back to Lancaster days. As everyone knows, I represent Morecambe. Does he agree that any legislative measures to curb red tape should not impede the safety of the cockle pickers and shell fisheries industry? It must always be borne in mind that any future changes should enhance protection powers and not detract from them.

[Stephen Barclay]

I thank my hon. Friend for his contribution, and he is right. I will come on to how we can make improvements without their being a bureaucratic imposition on firms. I should point out that I am talking about tackling illegal gangmasters, not the legal ones who already adhere to the rules.

My first point is about resource allocation. At the moment, 12 counties across the eastern spine of the country are covered by only six inspectors from the Gangmasters Licensing Authority. That is equivalent to Cambridgeshire and Norfolk being covered by just one inspector. My right hon. Friend the Minister is my constituency neighbour. He will know, as I do, how much time is taken only by travel; let alone by dealing with translation, illegal gangmasters, intelligence gathering and the many other issues that an inspector has to address. I simply do not think it realistic to expect one inspector to cover 3,500 square miles. I accept and, as a member of the Public Accounts Committee, I very much recognise the difficulty of asking for more resource. However, I urge my right hon. Friend to look at resource allocation across his Department and agencies to see whether resource could be redeployed from other areas to what is a pressing community need.

The second issue relates to penalties. We need to have new civil penalties, rather than to rely on criminal charges. That is accepted by most of the experts in the field I have spoken to—the Gangmasters Licensing Authority, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and others. I urge the Minister to consider the wider use of civil penalties. Civil fines should be available not only for technical breaches, but for all gangmaster-related offences, and they should apply to both gangmasters and those who are unlicensed. Although criminal powers exist, there have been only 11 prosecutions in two years. It is therefore clear that the difficulty of getting vulnerable workers to give evidence in court and the high threshold for prosecution—the burden of proof required for criminal prosecutions—mean that that is not working as an enforcement tool. There is a problem with the tool that is currently available to the GLA, and I welcome the positive soundings in the Minister’s recent statement.

The fact that the GLA has issued 300 warning notices makes it clear that some issues are not being addressed. I therefore urge the Minister to consider the example of the UK Border Agency, which can impose fines of £10,000 on those employing illegal immigrants, as a model that could be applied to the GLA. If the UKBA can do that, I question why such powers are not place to deal with those who illegally employ agricultural workers. The point is that those committing such crimes are motivated by greed. Therefore, having civil penalties that hit them in the pocket would be far more effective.

In its correspondence with me, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation stated that

“all our evidence would support beefing up the powers of the GLA. It’s clear that bringing prosecutions is complex and difficult, and that tackling the problem of forced labour cannot solely depend on the existence of the criminal offence. So looking at civil penalties is an entirely appropriate and welcome policy”.

I urge my right hon. Friend the Minister to respond to that. Even when criminal prosecutions are made, the fine imposed by the court is often negligible. In a recent case in Nottingham, both the court and the council urged the provision of sentencing guidelines.

Thirdly, we should have sentencing guidelines to give courts the clarity that they themselves would welcome. Such cases are relatively rare, and it is even more important to have good guidelines, given that there are few criminal prosecutions. Fourthly, I want to flag up the need for repayment orders. One of the deterrents within the regulatory toolkit that could be imposed is to ensure that those who have committed offences have to recompense those deprived of their wages. I return to my original example of people having worked all week in the field, only for them to be deprived of their wages. We need to find a way of ensuring that those who are in future held to account—currently, they are not—are also forced, through repayment orders, to compensate those they have exploited. Those are the financial drivers that would address the exploitation currently taking place.

The fifth and final area I want to flag up to is the need for far more effective multi-agency working. Illegal gangmasters deprive the Exchequer of significant tax revenue through the non-payment of pay-as-you-earn and VAT. Will my right hon. Friend the Minister hold discussions with the Treasury on whether any potential savings made from addressing tax loopholes or the non-payment of tax could be used to help address the resource issue and funding challenge that I have highlighted?

Could my right hon. Friend the Minister provide reassurance that there will be more multi-agency work between the Home Office, police, UKBA and local councils? Houses in multiple occupation need to be registered only if they have three floors, but most of the houses in the fens, as he knows, have two floors, so they are not registered and are falling through the gaps between different agencies. Likewise, where criminality has taken place, it is essential that those responsible be deported.

Finally, it would be useful if we demonstrated the effectiveness of a multi-agency taskforce via an urgent pilot programme. The fens and my constituency of North East Cambridgeshire in particular are well placed to take part in such a programme. Perhaps my right hon. Friend the Minister—as I said, he is my constituency neighbour—and I could discuss over the next few weeks how we could bring together the Home Office, UKBA, the local council and the police to run a pilot programme that shines a light on some of the worst abuses that are taking place in our country and depriving people working in tough jobs in our fields of the wages they are due.