Labour Market Enforcement

Sajid Javid Excerpts

Tuesday 12th January 2016 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills and President of the Board of Trade (Sajid Javid)]

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Home Department and I will today publish the Government’s response to the consultation “Tackling Exploitation in the Labour Market”. The consultation paper was published on 13 October 2015 and the consultation closed on 7 December 2015.

The consultation sought views on four proposals:

Creating the role of director of labour market enforcement to set the strategic priorities for labour market enforcement bodies (the Employment Agency’s standards inspectorate, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs’ national minimum wage team and the Gangmasters Licensing Authority) in an annual labour market enforcement strategy;

Allowing data sharing between the director, the intelligence hub, labour market enforcement bodies and other bodies with intelligence that inform the preparation of the labour market enforcement strategy;

Creating a new labour market undertaking and enforcement order regime, backed up by a criminal offence and custodial sentence—to allow us to tackle repeat labour market offenders and rogue businesses; and

Reforming the Gangmasters Licensing Authority to become the gangmasters and labour abuse authority with stronger powers to tackle labour exploitation across the economy.

The consultation responses gave broad support for the Government’s proposals. Therefore we will introduce these measures to tackle labour market exploitation, secure decent, lawful working conditions and make sure that people receive the rights and wages to which they are entitled. My hon. Friend the Home Office Lords Minister will today table amendments to the Immigration Bill to bring these measures in to law.

The Government response document, which sets out further detail, can be found on the gov.uk website.

[HCWS459]